Fullmetal Ninja
by Dark Ice Dragon
Summary: ·FMA Naruto crossover· Ed and Al tried to resurrect their Mother but something went wrong. Not only did they fail, their bodies paying the price, but they are no longer in Amestris. They are in a world where all the natural rules aren't always obeyed...
1. When Things go Wrong

**Summary**: (Fullmetal Alchemist/ Naruto crossover) Ed and Al tried to resurrect their Mother but something went wrong. Not only did they fail, their bodies paying the price, but they are no longer in Amestris. They are in a world where all the natural rules aren't always obeyed...

Yeah, new fic again. And if you know what my updating schedule was like before, this being the first Wednesday of the month, it means that this is taking over the slot for Crossing Over is Never Easy. Sorry but I've gotten stuck on it a bit so I'm leaving it for the while. Same for A Working Day. I'll be updating this monthly and I've got a few chapters written already for this so it shouldn't be _too_ bad hopefully.

I'm going to be taking aspects of the anime and the manga from FMA and I'll be using the manga for Naruto. The timelines are pre-canon for FMA and just after Tsunade becomes Hokage for Naruto.

All the spoken words before the world change are from the FMA manga.

Things to know about my writing: I'm a slow updater. I update this fic once a month, and I average about 2,500 words a chapter so if that's too long a wait for not a lot to read, it's probably not a good thing to read this fic. In this fic I'm going to be focusing on the interactions the characters have with each other so don't expect a lot of action in it; there's a reason why its genre is general. And things move very slowly too from chapter to chapter.

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**THIS FIC IS DISCONTINUED. **

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**Fullmetal Ninja**

By Dark Ice Dragon**  
**

When Things go Wrong

* * *

Ed dotted the last full stop with unneeded flourish. He held up the piece of paper and checked through the calculations.

"Done!" he said triumphantly, pleased that all the hard work had finally paid off. Just to make sure, he murmured out loud what he and his brother, Al, had worked out together. "Thirty-five litres of water, twenty kilos of carbon, four litres of ammonia, and one-and-a-half kilos of lime. Phosphorus: 800 grams. Salt: 250 grams. Sulphur: 100 grams. Magnesium: eighty grams. Manganese: one-and-a-half grams. Iron: five grams. Silicon: three grams…"

xXx

The Elric brothers moved around their laboratory with practiced ease. It was filled with bubbling test-tubes, beakers and vials among other things that they would use soon. The ceiling was masked by the smoke that was coming from their instruments - it was also a discoloured yellow from it reacting to the chemicals within the smoke.

"Ah! Hot hot!" Al yelped as he held the boiling pan with a kitchen cloth, the heat still passing through it with little difficulty.

"Careful," Ed scolded him lightly. "That's gonna be part of our Mum." He himself was holding a tray with various cans and jars in it, each filled with something different.

"Hee hee," Al giggled. "What should we say to her first when we see her?" he asked, turning to his brother.

Ed grinned back at him. "Isn't it obvious? 'Don't tell our Master!'"

Al laughed and Ed joined him. They two talked towards the very large tin basin in the centre of the room; they emptied the contents of what they were holding into it.

Then they set straight back to work again, drawing the transmutation circle around it.

xXx

As they finished and were putting the final touches to the transmutation circle, Ed muttered quietly, "The Alchemy circle…" He took it out a pocket knife from his pocket and cut the tip of his left index finger. Ed watched as the blood welled from the cut and started to trail down his finger. He handed Al the knife as he watched the blood being on the verge of dripping off of the digit.

"And…" At the same time, they held out their hands and let several drops fall on to the mass that would soon be their Mother. "For the soul."

The two knelt down and placed their hands gently on the outer border, making sure that they didn't smudge the chalk, of course. They shuffled a bit for a minute to make sure that they were comfortable and to just triple-check everything that they'd done again. They then looked at each other in anticipation.

"Here it goes, Al."

Al nodded. "Yup."

They closed their eyes and concentrated. They felt the familiar tingle of Alchemy running down their arms and onto the transmutation circle. They could still see the bright sparks of the reaction even through their closed eyelids.

There was a much bigger and longer spark that didn't die as fast as the ones before. The two opened their eyes, wanting to see their Mother appearing, knowing that this would be the moment that it would happen. Light crested along the lines that they had drawn as the mass in the basin rose up, starting from the centre. A large Alchemic reaction burst up from the mass and crashed into the ceiling. It left a burnt smell in its wake, parts of paint and plaster raining down softly afterwards.

They grinned, waiting. The 'lightning strikes' grew in their ferocity; its reach getting closer and closer to the brothers with each strike. The rattling of the beakers and test-tubes grew louder and some smashed for seemingly no apparent reason. Ed and Al felt the wind that was coming from the reaction grow stronger. A _lot_ stronger from what they were used to feeling normally.

Ed's smile faded, sensing something was wrong. He looked around warily, his hair whipping around in the wind.

"Big brother," Al said, a tinge of fear in his voice. "Something is wrong…" He screamed suddenly, the abrupt sound echoing around the room, louder than everything else. Al lifted up his left arm where his wrist was disappearing under the second part of transmutation: deconstruction. However, there was no blood - it was just breaking up and disappearing before their eyes.

Ed yelled out his brother's name frantically. "Al!" He felt something at his leg, a weird sensation that he'd never felt before. Staring down at it, he saw that the same was happening to himself. _'It's a rebound!'_ he realised in horror.

"Big brother!" Ed heard his brother scream out again. His brotherly instincts overrode his other thoughts and feelings and he reached out, trying to grab Al's stretched-out hand, both with tears in their eyes. Both of their arms shook from the exertion and fear.

_'No…'_ Suddenly, he was in an empty white space. A large empty white space; he couldn't even see any walls anywhere near him. Looking up, he couldn't see anything apart from that same white but there was nothing there that suggested that it was physically there and not just a huge expanse.

A dream? he wondered. He looked around, seeing a floating… slab that was decorated with a strange-looking tree behind him.

"Al?" His voice echoed slightly in the area. "What the – What was I doing…?" he asked out aloud.

_-'Hey.'-_ Ed froze. That wasn't his thoughts; it didn't sound like his 'inner voice'. His head whirled around, searching for the source of the 'voice'.

"Who is it?" he demanded.

_-'Herehere,'-_ was the playful reply. _–'I'm right here in front of you.'-_

"Where…" Ed began to ask but trailed off. There was a humanoid figure sitting casually on the floor. It had a shadow underneath it but… there were no features. It was blank: no clothes, skin, or face. There was only an aura surrounding it (?) so that Ed could tell it from the landscape.

"Who are you?" Ed asked curiously. He had been doing something. But what? He knew that it was important but he couldn't remember for some reason. He had been reaching out for a reason.

_-'Ah, thanks for asking!'-_ it said cheerily, raising a hand. _-'I'm what you humans refer to as the world. Also known as the "universe" or "God" or "True Knowledge" or "all" or "one".'-_

Ed started at the names. The entity continued before Ed completely registered the implications. _–'And…'-_ -it pointed a finger at Ed- _-'I'm you!'-_

'What?'

An ominous creak behind Ed. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle at the sound and he didn't turn, knowing that it was the slab but not wanting to know _how_ it was opening without hinges (and hanging in midair).

Ed yelled out as black hands reached out - ttoomuch!- and grabbed at his shoulders and head. The arms wound completely around his torso and yanked him off of his feet. They were soon all over his body, making sure that he couldn't escape but he still struggled against them as hard as he could.

_-'Be quiet,'-_ the entity said scornfully. _–'Isn't this what you wanted?'-_

The arms pulled him towards the door further and finally, into it. Even as he resisted, the door began to close in front of him. Just before the door closed completely, Ed heard the voice again.

_-'I'll show you "True Knowledge".'-_

_'What the hell is this?'_ Images. So many images. Voices murmured and screamed at the same time, attached to the pictures as they flashed by. _'Stop!'_ he pleaded to no-one. _'My head's gonna explode!'_ They wouldn't stop coming. If anything else, they came faster. He couldn't distinguish what the words were saying, nor what he was seeing. All he could do was watch as everything sped by, his head feeling like it was going to be crushed as his senses were being overloaded. _'I'm gonna mutilated! No, please stop!'_

Just as he thought that, Ed saw a silhouette. A familiar one that he had longed to see once more. He tried to reach her, as did she.

Suddenly Ed found himself sprawled out, supine, in a lush green forest. He gasped, noticing how he no longer could feel his left foot and the immense pain that he was feeling because of it. It wasn't just because of that, but because it felt like he had fallen from about six foot up straight onto his stomach (thank you Teacher for that lesson) so he had no air in his lungs to scream no matter how much he wanted to. In the back of his mind, he heard a muffled _'boom'_.

Slowly turning his head to look the other way, Ed was relieved to see that Al was beside him, unconscious. That was his last thought before the world around him whited out.

xXx

"And and! I used my new ultimate move, the Rasengan, and it was awesome!" Naruto said excitedly, telling Iruka what had happened when he and Jiraiya had gone to get Tsunade.

Iruka smiled gently at his former student's antics. The smile froze as he sensed something. It was just a flicker of chakra in the far distance before it was gone.

Naruto peered up at him, noticing his teacher's sudden distraction. "Eh? What's wrong?"

Frowning thoughtfully, Iruka fished into one of his pockets and paid for his and Naruto's bill. He thought he did anyway – if he gave too much, that would give Naruto some free ramen for a while and if he gave too little, Teuchi would tell him the next time he came around.

"I need to check on something," Iruka said quietly as he stood up. He didn't know why he was going to see the Hokage –undoubtedly, she had already sensed what he had- but it worried him.

It wasn't a signature that he recognised but from that brief spark that he had felt, he knew that it wasn't human. And it was old. Powerful.

Analysing further, he realised that he had felt something to it some twelve years before. But this was different. He was wasting too much time think it over, he berated himself when he tried to think why it was different. He needed to go _now_.

He headed straight for the Hokage's office.

xXx

Tsunade walked slowly to her office, what she had seen troubling her - that Lee boy giving her the most to think about. She stopped, a frown marring her youthful features.

She looked over her shoulder. _'What…?'_ Within seconds, she was surrounded by a number of Jounin, Chuunin and ANBU. They had sensed it too and went straight to her, awaiting her orders.

Scanning around her, Tsunade picked out five ANBU and barked out their names. They stood up straighter, waiting for her command. "Go to the site where the chakra flare was last felt - report back what you find." She gazed at each one in turn. "I don't have to tell you to be careful."

The five nodded curtly. They then disappeared from view, only leaving a swirl of leaves in their wake.

xXx

Hawk crouched on top of a branch, having travelled quickly from Konoha. The other four were similarly perched on branches nearby. They were nearly on the spot that the different chakra had been felt. They weren't able to pinpoint it exactly but they knew that it had originated from this area. He glanced to Ocelot, knowing that she was a Hyuuga. There was no need for words; there never usually was. He sensed the activation of the Byakugan and waited.

Ocelot turned her head slightly and back again - that being her only movement. The leaves around them rustled from the breeze picking up. Other than that, there were few other noises around them, even from animals.

Keeping an eye on Ocelot for her signal that she had found something, Hawk thought over the puzzling situation. They had sensed the strange chakra –even if it _was_ for under a second- and knew that it would be trouble. The five ANBU had been there when the Kyuubi had attacked twelve years ago -not all of them as ANBU at the time but they had each lived through it- and they knew how powerful its chakra had felt then. This chakra felt similar to the Kyuubi's level of power. However, it was different because there had been no malevolence force to it; it wasn't benevolent either, on the other hand.

Saying that, where was the vessel of all the chakra? The Kyuubi itself stood over one-hundred metres tall, from paw to the tip of its ears (not accounting the nine tails, of course).

Yet…

There was no sign of destruction of any kind, though. It would have been impossible for something so immensely powerful to condense it down so that it couldn't be sensed and the size of it had to be similar of that to the Kyuubi's. From what they could see around them, the forest was exactly how is used to be, not a twig out of shape.

It was hiding, that much was certain. And if it was hiding, it was up to something.

Ocelot hissed – she had found something. "There are two children –civilian- both no older than nine or ten southwest, forty-two metres," she supplied quickly. "They're both _covered_ in the alien chakra but it's not coming _from_ them. They're not illusions and they're human." She paused very briefly. Hawk knew that there was something else, something else that was out of the ordinary. There had to have been if she was talking about them. She had hissed for a reason.

"One is missing his left leg from the knee down; the other, from below his left elbow," she continued. "The limbs aren't in the vicinity," she added.

_'So they're not conscious then,'_ Hawk thought dryly. They had been ordered to report back whatever they found but all five knew that the children wouldn't be able to survive that long.

Again, he thanked whoever was watching over them (if such a being actually existed) that Tsunade was their Hokage now. She would easily be able to help them. But first, they would have to stem the bleeding before the children bled out and the ANBU transported them to the hospital.

Squirrel knew a fire jutsu.

As one, they headed towards the children. They were on edge though. Why those children? And where was the being that had left them there?

* * *

Gotta love translation problems. In one chapter, Ed says niter and in another he says salt. I went for salt here.

Not much happening in this chapter but it has to start somehow. ;)

The next update will be on the third of October.


	2. Beginnings

**Summary**: (Fullmetal Alchemist/ Naruto crossover) Ed and Al tried to resurrect their Mother but something went wrong. Not only did they fail, their bodies paying the price, but they are no longer in Amestris. They are in a world where all the natural rules aren't always obeyed...

Thanks to all the people who reviewed, added this fic to their favs and story alerts already. :) And thanks to the people who I talked to about using the Japanese suffixes - I've decided that it'll make things far too difficult for me and yeah... I'll just be using the names for techniques and such but that'll be the only time I should be using Japanese in this fanfic.

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**Fullmetal Ninja**

By Dark Ice Dragon**  
**

Beginnings

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Naruto stared at the spot where his former teacher had just been standing in a few seconds before. He then glanced at the unfinished bowl that Iruka had left behind. He _never_ did that. Not unless something really important had come up and he absolutely had to.

Iruka had sensed something, that was obvious. Naruto wouldn't have noticed the whatever-it-was if he hadn't been with Iruka at the time. Naruto grumbled to himself internally. His former teacher was still able to sense stuff that he couldn't. How was he supposed to become the Hokage if he couldn't even do what Iruka could do?

Even though, there _was_ something that was making him feel slightly uneasy. It wasn't the thing that that Iruka had sensed because Naruto was feeling it after Iruka had - or maybe he was just having some sort of delayed reaction. He was feeling uneasy, he didn't know why and it was bugging the _hell_ out of him.

Naruto decided to train instead of going in to see Sasuke at the hospital like he had been intending to do. He was fine since the old hag had seen him (or whatever passed for 'fine' in Sasuke's world) and Sakura was with him anyway. Not that Sasuke would notice.

He grinned to himself. He'd get even better and once Sasuke was out of the hospital, wouldn't he be in for a surprise?

xXx

Ed twitched but didn't open his eyes. He subtly took in a deep breath and wondered - the room didn't smell familiar. There was no smell of dusty books at least; that was almost a given at his house. He stretched his back a little and was surprised to feel that there was the softness of a bed beneath him and not the floor.

He heard a soft murmur of surprise. A creak of a chair. Ed scrunched up his eyes before opening them, eyes towards the sound. His vision was still a bit blurred but it wasn't too bad. A few blinks later, his eyesight was nearly back to being completely normal.

There was a young woman sitting on the chair next to his bed. She had blonde hair that reached her collarbone; looking up higher, Ed saw that she had brown eyes and… a small blue diamond in the centre of her forehead? A tattoo perhaps? She looked at him curiously; he stared back at her, not intimidated. This seemed to amuse her for some reason to which, Ed glowered at her even more.

But this obviously wasn't his bed (not that he and his brother usually used one). He turned his head away from the woman, searching around. This wasn't even his bedroom! It was too white, too impersonal, too _clean_. There were a few books and other pieces of paper around about though, mostly on the floor that he could see from his vantage point. His next thought went to his brother. Where-?

As if sensing Ed's growing agitation, the woman had stood up from her chair and moved the curtain that was drawn behind her. Behind the curtain was Al, prone, unconscious. Or maybe sleeping, Ed reasoned. Not hurt that badly, he hoped.

He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and was about to push himself off when the woman stopped him by placing a firm hand on his shoulder. Ed looked up at her in surprise. Why had she stopped him? He needed to make sure, to see with his own eyes that his brother was okay and not just from a distance. She looked sad for some reason, her eyes downcast slightly, shaking her head at him slowly.

It was when she started talking that Ed realised that he couldn't understand a word that she was saying. Not one sounded even remotely familiar. He shook his head, as if that gesture would clear his head and make him understand. He hoped that he hadn't hit his head or something and he could no longer comprehend what other people were saying. When he was looking at the woman again, she had an expectant expression on her face.

"Could you repeat that?" Ed asked her.

The woman blinked in surprise and then frowned quickly. She repeated what she had said, slower this time. Ed stared at her lips, but the words still didn't make any sense. He shook his head to convey that he still didn't understand what she was saying. He shrugged just in case he might be answering something by shaking his head.

She pointed to his legs.

Eyes following the finger, Ed saw the blanket still covering his legs. He continued looking and began to realise that something was very, very wrong. The limbs under the blanket were a little… lopsided. His right leg extended to the edge of the bed where he'd been about to get off consequently his foot dangled over into thin air. Staring at the left side however, there was the same lump in the blankets but it stopped short before reaching the edge and the blanket dipped alarmingly; as if there was nothing there.

Ed tore the blanket away from his body, not wanting to know what was underneath but the need to know was stronger. He felt the blood drain away from his face and it was as if his heart had stopped beating. His left leg was fine until it reached below his knee; after that, it ended with a stump swathed in bandages. Along with his heart, it suddenly felt a lot harder to breathe. Ed tried to feel if he could actually tell that he was missing his lower leg. He knew that he was sending signals from his brain but, obviously, nothing happened. He still thought that he had both legs, still thought that he could feel the toes in his left foot. He could still move his toes in his right foot though so, at least, there was no damage there.

_'Phantom limbs,'_ Ed remembered Granny saying once. It was something she came across quite a lot when she was giving her services as an Automail mechanic. It was when a person, even though they knew they had the evidence right in front of them, even though they knew that they were missing a limb, they still thought that the missing limb was there and that they could feel it. It could be years before they stopped 'feeling' that limb; conversely, they could have been 'fine' without the limb and then suddenly the 'feeling' came back to it. Added to that, it could even feel painful and since it was all in the mind, painkillers wouldn't be able to help in any way whatsoever.

What had happened? Ed thought numbly. How had he lost his leg? What…?

The woman said something again, this time with a questioning lilt at the end.

Losing his track of thought, Ed scowled at her but he welcomed the distraction because it meant he wasn't thinking about _that_ and he could start bringing his bodily functions (like breathing and his heart beating) back in order. "I don't understand you," he said slowly, pronouncing each syllable clearly. Not that there was much chance of her really understanding his words except through his tone.

She sighed but she was hiding a twitch at the corner of her mouth. She pointed to herself. "Tsunade," she said clearly. "Hokage." A small pause to check he understood. Right, her first name and second name. But why the big gap in between the two? He only _looked_ young (and it _obviously_ wasn't because he was short damnit) – he wasn't dumb because of that. She then pointed to him. That was easy enough to get the meaning.

"Edward. Ed Elric." He pointed to his brother. "Alphonse. Al Elric."

Tsunade nodded to herself, repeating the names.

Ed glanced down at his leg again. He looked sharply to his brother and then to Tsunade. "Al! Did something happen to him too?" he asked quickly, the words tumbling out of his mouth.

She stared at him patiently before she shook her head, not knowing what he was saying.

Argh! How was he supposed to mime 'Does my brother also have a limb missing?' And then it came to him. He could have slapped himself; it was so easy! Ed pointed to Al and then to his missing limb. He looked up at Tsunade in what he hoped looked inquiringly.

She nodded, understanding. She then shook her head slowly. Ed's heart lifted at that. Al wasn't hurt! But why was she leaning forward? Tsunade tapped just below his left elbow, trailing down to his fingers.

He stared at his hand. He turned it over slowly, so that the palm was facing up. He clenched and unclenched it easily. Al had lost his left hand. How – Ed yelped as he was lifted by his armpits and carried easily to his brother's bed. He was gently sat down at Al's head.

Looking up at her in confusion, Ed saw a strange expression on Tsunade's face. She looked at Al and then back to him. And then, he realised.

_'Look after him.'_

Ed nodded resolutely. No wonder he didn't recognise that look the first time – it wasn't often he met other older siblings. But it wasn't as if he really needed to be told in the first place.

After making sure that Ed wouldn't fall off of the bed accidentally, Tsunade swept up her scrolls (Why scrolls? Ed wondered. People actually used them?) and books and left the room with a wave and a smile.

Ed waved back at her uncertainly as she disappeared out the room. He glanced at Al, making sure that he was still resting peacefully; he was.

He rubbed at an eye tiredly. He may have woken up but that still didn't mean he didn't need to rest some more.

Checking on Al one more time, Ed carefully went under the blanket, making sure that he didn't disturb his brother.

What had they been doing? Why were they missing limbs? The answer was _there_; he _knew_ what it was. But his brain wasn't co-operating. Just as the answer was about to come to him, Ed had closed his eyes and fallen fast asleep.

xXx

A clatter of shoes slapping on tiles. Raised voices. Hearing that, Al woke up with a start. The first thing he noticed was that there was a white tiled ceiling above his head. The second thing he noticed was that there was a warm body next to him. From the corner of his eyes, Al could tell that it was his elder brother sleeping next to him. When he tried to sit up, Al then noticed that something was decidedly missing when he fell on top of said elder brother with a yell.

"Ack!" Well, his brother was up now. "Al!" Ed said, his face shifting from surprise to worry when he saw who had woken him up. "Are you okay?"

Al grinned sheepishly. "Yeah. I'm fine."

Ed's face softened, knowing that he was lying. "You're not."

Al wriggled off of Ed before he lifted his left arm to look at what was left of it. He was pleased that he could still move his elbow but… he just wasn't processing the fact that he no longer had a left hand. He poked lightly at the stump and winced at the small jolts of pain that sped up his arm. Definitely not a trick or illusion of the mind. Ed's hand clamped down on his wrist, just in case he tried to do it again.

"Don't," Ed said softly.

Al stared at it for another second before looking up at Ed.

"I've lost part of my left leg," Ed supplied, Al not needing to actually ask.

Al nodded slowly, seeing the uneven lumps under the blanket now that he knew.

The two brothers glanced to the door as they heard people running past it. It was then that Al started to properly look around the room that he and his brother were in. "Brother, where are we?" he asked.

Ed shrugged. "Dunno. A hospital, by the looks of it. There was a nurse or doctor here before, when I woke up. Um… her name was…" He paused, a concentrated frown on his face. "Tsunade Hokage." He said the name slowly, wrapping his tongue around the strange syllables. "She doesn't speak the same language as us." Ear cocked towards the door, Ed listened to the yelling that was drifting through the closed door. "I don't think anyone here does."

Al had been listening to the words also and had come to the same conclusion. "But why are people running around the hospital and shouting like that if this is a hospital?" Al wondered out loud. "They'd wake the people who're meant to be resting."

"Like us?" Ed asked wryly.

"Hmm," Al agreed, a small smile forming.

The two were silent, listening to the voices that they didn't understand. There was a pause in the shouting as the sound of running feet began again. It was quiet when the footfalls had faded away.

"What were we doing?" Ed whispered. It wasn't because Ed didn't want to disturb the peace that had been created from the absence of the racket but because he didn't need to raise his voice to be heard. Ed had pushed himself up so that he was leaning on the headboard soon after he had woken up. Al had done the same, but he slouching a little bit more than Ed.

Al cast his mind to the last thing he remembered. He remembered being in his home but that was normal. Something more specific… Rain? Lightning – but lightning wasn't blue was it? An Alchemy reaction then. But of… what…

"I remember," Al croaked out.

Ed turned his head and looked at his brother in concern after seeing his face. "Wha-?" He was cut short when Al flung himself on his brother, a half-chocked back sob escaping his lips.

"Mother… We must have failed…" As soon as Al had finished the first word, he felt Ed tense. He felt Ed's arms go around his shoulders and his breath through his hair. A tremble travelled up Ed's body and his breathing came in gulps.

"It wasn't enough," Ed murmured. "Our blood wasn't enough to bring her back."

Al didn't try too hard to hold back his tears. He clutched at the unfamiliar top Ed was wearing (assumedly from the hospital) with his remaining hand and he could already tell that he had left quite a wet patch where his head was. "But we calculated everything!" he exclaimed, his breath hitching and wavering at every word. He heart was feeling heavy from the realisation. They had failed to bring back their Mother.

Ed's arms tightened around him. "What is the cost of a human soul?" Ed asked hypothetically. "We thought that our blood would be enough to bring back Mother. In theory, since we're both her sons, there was a part of her in each of us."

Al understood what Ed was meaning. "But that's just biologically. Mother's memories, her personality…"

His brother nodded. "Yeah," he said faintly. "What can we give in exchange for a human soul? To make her exactly what she used to be like before? All we gave was a few droplets of blood."

The two lapsed into silence again, finding comfort in each other's arms. Al's sniffles lessened as they stayed like that, the contact reminding him that all was not completely lost.

"Hey, Al?" Ed said after a few minutes.

"Yeah?"

"You remember _his _journals?"

There was only one person that Ed used that tone towards. "Father's?"

A grunt. "Do you remember what he said in them… about the Philosopher's Stone?"

Al paused, memories of cracking the code and what they had been able to glean afterwards coming up in his mind. He nodded. "They can bypass the Equivalent Exchange law. But that's just a myth," Al added with a frown.

Ed shrugged. "It had to come from somewhere right?"

He thought it over. In every legend and myth, there was said to be a grain of truth. If that was the case here…

Al looked up at Ed's sigh. "This is all my fault. If I hadn't made the suggestion about bringing back Mum in the first place, this wouldn't have happened." Al opened his mouth to protest. It wasn't all Ed's idea; Al had wanted to do it too. Ed continued before Al could say anything. "Once we find out where we are and we find a way to get around," –Ed gestured towards his leg- "we'll start looking for the Philosopher's Stone to restore our bodies," Ed said determinedly.

Al was silent for a few seconds. "When we find it… we could use it to bring back Mother too."

Ed mulled it over. "Maybe. For all we know, the Philosopher's Stone might not be as powerful as we think it is and we might have to choose between our bodies and Mother. If we restored our bodies and then used it to bring back Mother and it still wasn't enough…" Ed trailed off, not needing to continue.

"Okay," Al said firmly. It was going to be tough from now, Al knew, with parts of their bodies missing. But things could have been worse. Al shivered at the thought.

His older brother responded by bringing the blanket up further and wrapped it around them both. "Don't worry Al," he assured him. "We'll be able to do it."

Al gave his big brother a small smile. It was going to be hard but they were going to do it together and that was what mattered. He hugged his brother tighter.

* * *

And the ripples start. Along with dramatic irony (which I love writing) and an abrupt ending.

Much headshaking. Bah.

Hmm, I feel like I've over-done it with the semi-colons. Either that or I'm using them and dashes wrong. And at the start, too many short sentences.

I'm also wondering if I should put in the meanings/translations behind some of the words (Hokage, array etc.) at the end of each chapter like I did/do with Crossing Over is Never Easy. With this crossover, it isn't as Japanese-heavy (at the moment, lets see what happens if a fight comes along) as COiNE but still. So should I add in the glossary thing for both sides of the canon at the end?

Well, uni's finally started for me but that shouldn't affect this fic until about January - which is also the time of when I have exams (cringes) but hopefully I'll be a little further ahead in the chapters by then to not be affected by that either.

The next update will be on the seventh of November.


	3. Babysitting

**Summary**: (Fullmetal Alchemist/ Naruto crossover) Ed and Al tried to resurrect their Mother but something went wrong. Not only did they fail, their bodies paying the price, but they are no longer in Amestris. They are in a world where all the natural rules aren't always obeyed...

Thanks to all the people who reviewed, added this fic to their favs and story alerts already. :) It means a lot to me.

* * *

**Fullmetal Ninja**

By Dark Ice Dragon**  
**

Babysitting

* * *

_'Tsh. Whatever ya stinkin' pervert,'_ Naruto grumbled in his head. Like Jiraiya actually knew what it was like to know someone like Sasuke. Naruto walked down the hospital corridor, not taking in much about his surroundings. He knew where the exit was and dodging around people wasn't hard, there weren't that many people in the corridor anyway. He had his thoughts on other things – like Sasuke and Sakura.

He sighed and scratched the area of hair behind his ear. What had happened during that fight? It'd barely even started before they began using the strongest techniques that they had been taught. And then Sakura was in between them before they were about to hit each other, when they were unable to pull back, unable to change direction, unable to do anything apart from fall/jump towards her. If Kakashi hadn't stepped in and threw them away from each other when he had…

"Oi, Naruto."

Naruto paused at the calling of his name, waiting to see if there was going to be anything else said. Turning his head behind him, he saw Tsunade leaving one of the rooms that he'd just passed. "What?" he said grumpily, shoulders hunched. He wasn't in the mood to be talking to anyone at the moment.

Tsunade jerked her head to the room she had just left. "I've got a small mission for you," she said, before turning back in to the room, not looking back at him.

He perked up a little at hearing this. A mission? What kind of mission? It'd better be a good one. Or at least something interesting. He followed her in, already feeling slightly better than what he had been before.

Until he saw the people who were in the room. He stared at the two boys for a second before glaring up at Tsunade. "Babysitting," he said flatly. A _D_-rank mission. And the two were at least eight; they were old enough to look after themselves, he thought sourly. He had been looking after himself at that age.

Tsunade sighed. "Not exactly. They don't know our language and, well, I heard that you got on well with Konohamaru – that he looked up to you." She shrugged. "They seem interested in learning our language," she added.

"Pfft." Naruto crossed his arms. "I'm not a teacher. Why ain't Iruka teachin' 'em?" As soon as he said that, Naruto remembered the conversation that he had had with Iruka the day before. Every Chuunin and Jounin available were being sent on missions – even the teachers at the Academy and the people who hadn't been on missions for years. "Never mind."

"So you accept the mission then?" Tsunade asked him sweetly, smiling as if she already knew his answer.

He eyed her and then snorted. "Yeah, yeah, whatever," Naruto said while waving his hand at her. He knew that she was basically asking him to and that it wasn't officially a mission. He definitely wouldn't be getting paid for it, that was for sure. But it could get his mind off other things for a little while. Maybe.

She nodded to him curtly. "Keep them out of trouble," she warned him. She then hesitated for a second. "And just be careful if they want to move around the hospital; Shizune's going to be bringing a wheelchair when she's going through the rounds." Naruto was surprised by that word of advice.

"Why?" Not that it was obvious since she wouldn't want them hurt again but still. She didn't have to say that; he wasn't _that_ stupid.

"Look closely at their eyes," she hinted, glancing back at the two.

So Naruto did. He held back a hiss as he saw that the two boys had gold eyes. Just like Orochimaru. They stared back at him, curiosity on their faces on their faces before they began talking to each other quietly. "Huh," he said lowly. So soon after his attack on Konoha, people were going to be more jumpy than they usually were. Since this was a hospital for ninja… And it wouldn't matter that they were kids – Naruto had enough proof of _that_.

Tsunade grunted as a reply. She then smiled at the two and waved at them. "Bye." The two mimicked the wave and what she said. After she had left, there was a brief uncomfortable silence. And a staring contest. If they were dangerous, the old hag wouldn't allow them in the hospital without some sort of guard at least, Naruto reasoned to himself. 'Course, if they were, and Tsunade asked him to look after them then she trusted him with something like this, he thought with a small grin.

But they weren't doing anything except from staring at him. Really dangerous that was. "So what am I supposed to do?" Naruto muttered under his breath. He sighed and then pointed to himself. "Uzumaki Naruto." May as well start with the easy stuff.

The boy furthest from him spoke up first. "Ed Elric." He then lightly elbowed the boy next to him. Naruto saw that that boy was missing the lower part of his left arm, which was why Ed hadn't jostled him too hard. Looking back at Ed, he saw that he was missing part of his left leg. Well, they had to be here for a reason didn't they?

"Al Elric." Naruto's brow furrowed. Why were they putting their family name after their given name? Maybe that was how they did things where they were from. So were they brothers or cousins? To Naruto, they looked similar, so probably brothers. Not that he really knew, he thought with a mental shrug.

There was a thinly veiled expectant look on the boys' faces. What was he supposed to do? Just point and say what it was? That seemed rather stupid and he'd look like an idiot doing that.

"Uzumaki?" Ed said slowly, tripping over the pronounciation.

Naruto shook his head. "Naruto," he corrected.

Ed blinked in incomprehension and then scowled at him.

What? He was angry at him because he wanted them to call him by his... Oh. How the hell was he supposed to explain _that_? A few seconds thought and he had a vague idea on what to do. Naruto pointed to Ed. "Elric." Then he pointed to Al and said, "Elric." And then pointed to himself. "Uzumaki." They should be able to understand that, right?

Understanding bloomed in their faces. The two boys nodded.

"Hmm, Naruto?" Ed said, this time a little bit faster, finding his given name easier to say. Ed pointed to his own forehead, a puzzled frown on his face.

"Eh? Forehead?" Naruto reached up and touched the same area that Ed was pointing to. His fingers brushed against metal. "Oh. My forehead protector." The two repeated the words slowly, saying each syllable carefully.

Ed was still pointing to his own forehead, to the very centre of it. "It's the symbol of the Leaf," Naruto explained, realising what Ed was actually pointing to.

Twin blinks.

Naruto sighed irritably. Was he going to have to talk in one word sentences to them all the time? "Leaf." Again, they repeated the word. Where were these two from? How come they didn't know the language or the sign of a ninja? They had to be complete civilians… But what people had such different coloured eyes that wasn't part of a bloodline limit?

"Umm," Al hummed, looking around the room. He pointed to the curtain and asked something in his language. _None_ of it sounded even vaguely familiar.

"What's this?" Naruto hazarded a guess at what Al was asking. The two repeated the phrase, still looking at the curtain.

Naruto groaned. Sakura had more patience than him, didn't she? Why was he the one to do this? Right, he was just walking past the door and Tsunade caught him. "No. What's this?" He pointed to the curtain. "Curtain."

The two boys' eyes lit up in understanding. "What's this?" Al asked experimentally, pointing.

"Table."

"What's this?"

"Window."

"What's this?"

"Bowl?"

"What's this?"

"Didn't he already-? Oh. Wood. _Wood_."

"What's this?"

"Fork. Knife. Spoon."

"What's this?"

"…Steel?"

"What's this?"

"Ugh. Hospital food." He rolled his eyes and made a face. The two's grins widened at the comment.

"What's this?"

"Lightbulb." Naruto was already regretting the idea of telling them the phrase. As soon as he'd answered one pointed finger, the other would point at something else. But at least he didn't feel stupid because he wasn't the one who was pointing. They seemed to enjoy it though. Weird.

"What's – ah!" Al, getting excited from learning new words apparently (Naruto didn't know why but at least they weren't staring at him) had been leaning forward to point, Naruto thought to the door. He leaned too far forward and he wasn't able to keep his balance. Naruto started to move to catch him instantly.

"Al!"

_'Clap.'_

_Flash._

Then all hell broke loose.

xXx

"What's – ah!"

"Al!" Ed cried out in alarm. He didn't know what he was doing, he didn't know what he was thinking. He merely reacted to his brother being in danger.

_'Clap.'_

_Flash._

The bed morphed under his hands to form a much bigger hand underneath Al and caught him. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that Al wasn't hurt. Al had landed on his back –he'd tried twisting around after falling because landing on your back was a hell of a lot better than landing on your front- and was staring up at the ceiling. A beat later, his eyes were on Ed and his eyes slid down to Ed's hands.

His eyes widened and he pointed at Ed. "You can do what Teacher can do!" he yelled in amazement.

"What…? No I-" Ed stopped. He looked down at his hands. No transmutation circle. Just… his hands touching the bed. "No. Way," he whispered, bringing his hands up to his face. It wasn't as if staring at them would reveal how it had happened but maybe... maybe there had been a transmutation circle on his hands that he didn't was there. Or something.

Just then, Naruto started shouting and pointing at Ed, his eyes wide in shock. Ed winced. Jeez, he didn't know someone could actually yell that loudly. But even though there was still the language barrier between them, it was pretty obvious what he was saying: '_What did you_ do?!'

Ed helped his brother get back on the bed, ignoring Naruto for the moment. "How can you do what Teacher can do?" Al asked him over the racket.

Ed scowled at Naruto. "Alchemy," he snapped at Naruto. Didn't he know Alchemy when he saw it? It normally didn't happen with just a clap of the hands but the reaction after was still the same. Naruto was quiet at the word, mulling it over while also mumbling to himself. Ed shrugged at Al. "Dunno. I just…" He trailed off. He remembered what Teacher had said when the two had asked her about how she was able to do Alchemy without an Array. "True Knowledge…" Ed breathed.

"What-" Al began to ask but then paled. "That door thing… You saw it too?"

Ed nodded, remembering the strange, intricately designed gate, the invisible being, and those black arms. "Yeah, I saw it. That… entity said it would show me 'True Knowledge'." He looked up at Al, realising something. "If you saw it too, that means you can do it."

Al frowned and glanced down. "But I don't have two hands though," he said quietly.

"So why don't you try with your foot?"

Al's head snapped back up. "With my _foot_?" he repeated incredulously, pointing to his right foot for further emphasis.

"Yeah, why not?" Ed said while shrugging. "Teacher said that her hands were the circle and she was the formula remember? So… a foot and a hand would make a circle wouldn't it?" It was a guess but it did make sense, that a weird way that only happened when you didn't think about it too much. They'd never seen Teacher use a hand and a foot but why would she? Using two hands were a lot easier than bringing your foot up to 'clap' – if you could really call it clapping.

His brother sighed a little resignedly. "I'll try it then." Al shuffled back a little bit for more space to move his feet and for when he placed his hand and foot on to the bed. Ed looked up at the sound of a '_click'_ in the near silent room. It was Tsunade - no, Hokage, Ed corrected himself, if their last names came before their first names, walking in, an annoyed frown on her face. Ed held up a finger to his lips when she glanced at him. An eyebrow quirked at that and she turned her gaze to Naruto. He shrugged helplessly and then started talking quickly (but at least quietly), pointing to the both of them, as well as using wild gestures. Ed was only able to catch his and his brother's name from it all and the rest seemed to be just one word with a few breaks in between. Not really interested in trying to understand what Naruto was saying for the moment, Ed checked back on his brother to make sure that he hadn't moved too far back and Ed wasn't going to have to clap his hands again.

Whatever Naruto was saying, it made Hokage's other eyebrow go up. She took a step forward and was then able to see that it wasn't just a blanket fallen at a strange angle. She regarded it curiously before looking towards Al.

"Okay," Al muttered. He looked up at Ed for reassurance to which, Ed grinned at him. Seeing that, Al's shoulders relaxed slightly and he managed a nervous smile back.

_'Clap.'_

_Flash._

Ed looked down and saw that the hand was away and all that was left was the hospital bed as it originally was. Al's eyes were wide. "I did it?" he whispered in disbelief. He looked down at his hand and foot. "That _worked?"_

Ed pretended to be offended and crossed his arms. "Of course it worked," he huffed. He dropped the façade a second later and beamed at Al.

Al grinned. He opened his mouth to say something but he was interrupted by a polite cough.

The two turned their heads to Hokage. "What-" Ed was only able to understand the first word and the rest was unintelligible. Although, come to think of it, if he remembered what Naruto had been yelling… Naruto's version had a few more words in it Ed noticed with amusement. So he now knew some swearwords in this language already.

"Alchemy," Al answered, knowing what she was asking.

Hokage cocked her head at the word. "Alchemy?" she repeated. She asked something else in her own language but Ed and Al looked at her blankly.

Ed snorted to himself. "Which part of _Amestris_ are we in if they don't know about Alchemy?" he muttered. "I mean, we're from _Resembool_ and we know about it." Okay, they probably didn't know Alchemy because they had a different name for it. But didn't they know what an Alchemic reaction looked like?

Hokage glanced between the two of them. She tutted when she didn't get an answer from them and then asked another question. "Amestris?"

Ed and Al froze. Their attention was now completely on her, their mouths agape. They didn't know what the name of the country was? Where _were_ they?

* * *

Yes, the ending was contrived. Shh. ;p

(sighs) When I change my chapters, my regular breakers don't show up anymore. That's why later chapters use my earlier breakers but this one I changed and now my regular one doesn't show up. Just read it the same as my earlier ones. Depending on what happens (all my other breakers get stripped) I'll either keep the xXx breakers or start using breakers that tell us to use. When that happens, I'll go and edit all my chapters so they're the same.

The next update will be on the Fifth of December.


	4. Evidence

**Summary**: (Fullmetal Alchemist/ Naruto crossover) Ed and Al tried to resurrect their Mother but something went wrong. Not only did they fail, their bodies paying the price, but they are no longer in Amestris. They are in a world where all the natural rules aren't always obeyed...

Went and realised two things that were wrong with the above summary before I corrected them yesterday: I'd spelled resurrect wrong, only using one r - and I'd also spelled Naruto as Naturo. This is what happens when you spell something wrong, don't realise that you've spelled it wrong, and then start copying and pasting it. (facepalm) Bet there's still another mistake in them anyways.

(Cough) The rating's gone up because of Ed's mouth. I was actually expecting that it'd have been because of Naruto that the rating went up first but eh, they're both foul mouthed when you get them riled. ;p

Much thanks to Krows Scared for beta-reading this chapter and slogging through my mistakes and making this chapter better. :)

And thanks to all the people who reviewed, and/or added this fic to their favourites and/or added this fic to their story alerts. It's appreciated loads.

* * *

**Fullmetal Ninja**

By Dark Ice Dragon**  
**

Evidence

* * *

Tsunade watched, confused, as the two boys paled at her question. What had she said wrong? Ed had said it, so it couldn't have been a taboo word for them. She tilted her head with curiosity when Ed pointed to the sheaf of papers she held in her arms. Leafing through, she found an empty sheet and passed it over, along with her pen, to Ed's impatient –and trembling- hand. Ed looked at the pen in surprise, turning it over and bringing it close to his face to examine it better. He tested it on a corner of the paper and then started sketching. It looked vaguely like a circle with an uneven edge, dipping with a small oval eating the top of the circle. The edge was too precise to be due to Ed's shaking hand so it had to be intentional.

'_Ah, of course,_' Tsunade realised, the idea clicking into place. '_They're from an island._' Knowing that made things a lot easier for her. If their community was completely isolated from the rest of the world, they wouldn't know about ninja and how long they had been isolated would also explain the different language and strange clothing that they had been wearing. Though the clothes were different, they weren't all that dissimilar to what the civilians wore in Konoha, which made things a little strange. She watched as Ed expanded around the circle, adding more areas. Territories, maybe? So how big was this island altogether? He scribbled some unrecognisable characters in the areas and then, in much bigger lettering, something else in main area.

"Amestris," he said, hand splayed over the biggest area.

She nodded, frowning slightly. Was that the name of their island or just the biggest area? "Resembool?" She recalled the other word that had been emphasised; it had seemed important to them.

Ed and Al glanced at each other, but didn't seem as worried as before. Scanning the paper, Ed drew a tiny circle in the south-east corner of the biggest area. Tsunade stared at it, intrigued; normally when young children drew where they were from, they exaggerated the size, not diminished it or made it the right proportions compared to everything else. It was the whole perception that their home was so important and huge that it was _obviously_ the biggest place in the world.

Tsunade turned her palm up towards Ed – a silent request for the paper and pen. He passed them back without hesitation. Tsunade turned the paper over, leaned slightly on the bed, and began to draw Fire Country and its neighbours. She finished after a minute and then drew a circle around Wave Country and added an arrow pointing to Fire Country. "Fire Country," she said, pointing to the ground. "Wave Country," she said slowly, tapping in the circle with the other end of the pen, looking pointedly at the two, hoping they would get the idea.

She hadn't thought that the two boys could get any paler and their eyes had widened as far as they could go. Ed's breathing had become harsh and Al had started to tremble. Al scooted over to Ed's side, seeking small comfort from the physical contact as they both continued to stare at the paper like it was going to bite them.

Tsunade shook her head, slightly disturbed by their reactions. They must have thought their island was the entire world. Her frown deepened when she looked at her drawing. From Wave Country to Fire Country, it was quite a distance for ones so young, particularly civilians; they certainly weren't acting like ninja at the moment so the distance should have been too much for them. For these two to get to the mainland they would have needed to take a boat or at least some kind of transport - that alone should have shown them that the world was a lot bigger than they thought. The two boys continued to stare at the hand-drawn map and leaned against one another, still not making any other movements. Unless they'd been kidnapped; if that had happened, then there was a large probability that they'd been bound, blindfolded and gagged whilst travelling. If they somehow managed to escape, they wouldn't even know which direction they had come from.

The other possibility was they'd been drugged, which led to more questions: 'why were they kidnapped?', 'why were they left there by the kidnappers missing an arm and a leg?' And then back full circle to: 'what was that energy we felt?' They could be the sons of an important person in Amestris and so, worth holding for ransom. The 'why were they abandoned by the kidnappers?' could be that the ransom wasn't paid or the payoff went wrong and the two boys were left for dead. Similarly, it could be because of their bloodline limit that they were kidnapped, with no intention of ever being given back to their parents but that, again, begged the question of 'why were they abandoned?' The mysterious energy signature still evaded explanation and that was assuming the answers she'd considered so far were _right_.

xXx

"That's... Not… Possible," Ed said haltingly. "Just where the fucking hell are we?!" The words were a harsh whisper. Not only did Hokage _not_ know that Amestris was the name of the largest country but then she started to draw a map that neither he nor Al recognised. Judging from that circle she drew around the area in the south-east, she must have thought that Amestris was a tiny island. Gah! And the squiggles she drew on those... countries made no sense either.

"Brother," Al murmured. "I don't understand. What – How – Why –" He shook his head, trying vainly to sort out his confused thoughts. Not that Ed could blame him – his own head was in just as much disarray. "All this is pointing to…"

Ed nodded solemnly. "Yeah, I know." It made sense and absolutely no sense, all at the same time. They were scientists damnit! And their only 'logical' answer from the evidence they'd seen so far was not logical! _'When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.'_ What happens when the impossible _is_ 'the truth'? Ed thought wryly. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath to try and calm his whirling mind and organise his thoughts into some sort of order.

'_Okay,_' Ed thought, '_the evidence we have so far. The people here don't speak the same language we do but as far as we know, all Amestris' neighbouring countries and beyond do, except for a couple of regional variants Teacher mentioned but this sounds totally different. These people haven't heard of Amestris, I don't think; not from their reactions anyway and so soon after the Ishvalan War; that can't be right. Their clothing is very different; granted, we've only seen a handful of people so far here and the furthest we've ever to was Dublith but the outfits these people are wearing are so much more outlandish than anything we've seen. This lady and the others we've seen could be some weirdo cult with no dress sense for all we know and the rest of the population dresses like we do._' Ed paused his thinking process to rub at the side of his face with one hand, when he kept his eyes closed he found it easier to focus on the evidence. Feeling the comforting warmth of his little brother leaning against him he continued with his train of thought. '_Alchemy doesn't seem to be recognised here but in Amestris, it's a State Qualification and recognised everywhere. It could be a translation problem, but Hokage's reaction doesn't support that theory. Aaargh! And that map she drew; it's like nothing I've ever seen before. It wasn't in any of_ his_ journals - in fact, all the evidence suggests we're in another world but that's just not possible… is it? No… this is just a very strange joint dream Al and I are having; we'll wake up back home and everything will be fine._'

But if that was the case, why did everything hurt? How did he remember feeling the mind-shattering pain he'd experienced those scant few seconds he was conscious in that forest? He and Al still didn't know how they had actually gotten to the hospital in the first place and maybe they wouldn't for a long time if they didn't learn the local language. If this was indeed a dream, he shouldn't be feeling twinges of pain in his stump of a leg. He shouldn't be feeling the semi-rough fabric of the covers underneath his fingers. He shouldn't be smelling the scents of the hospital, the smell of medicine and bleach. If this was a dream, it was far too realistic; there were too many senses involved.

That pretty much ruined Ed's hope that this was a dream; no dream could be this real - so that only left his original and more disturbing theory and one he didn't want to think about just now. It brought up a lot more questions which even collectively, neither he nor his brother could answer. It should have been impossible, it _was_ impossible. How could they be in a different world?

Ed was distracted from his distressing thoughts when he heard Hokage speak. Not knowing if the question was directed to him or not, he looked up to see her eyes focussed on his left leg. Following her gaze Ed realised that whilst his thoughts were trying to untangle themselves yet again, his hands had crept down to clutch at the bandaged stump.

Stepping closer, Hokage repeated what she had said, emphasising the lilt at the end and glancing pointedly at the stump clutched in his hands. Ed shrugged, not understanding. She poked his stump; not too hard but it still brought a sharp pain to him and he yelped, pulling away from her. Hokage snorted softly, before turning her attention to Al, asking the same question. He nodded briefly.

"What was she asking?" Ed asked, watching Hokage heading towards the door.

"I think," Al said uncertainly, "she was asking if we were in pain. She was watching you when you started to hold your leg."

"Hmm," Ed murmured. "There wouldn't be any other way to show you were in pain would there?" he mused, moving his hands away from his stump. It didn't really hurt, but it throbbed enough to make him grimace when a wave of pain made itself known. Now that he was more aware of it, the pain seemed to increase.

Hokage had barely stepped out of the room before she returned, a tall, black-haired woman following her.

Al looked at his brother sceptically, an expression that Ed wasn't used to seeing on his brother's face. "How about screaming?"

xXx

Tsunade moved to exit the room again, leaving Shizune look after the two boys and give them the painkillers they obviously needed but were unable to ask for. Naruto was lurking in the doorway, uncharacteristically quiet. She lowered her voice to address him.

"Make yourself useful, brat." The blonde ninja looked up at her ready to start yelling but she quieted him with a look. "When Shizune's finished, take them to the canteen on this floor." Naruto's eyebrows raised; his eyes moved to stare at a plate of leftovers on the windowsill. He frowned; there was only one plate but two boys... He looked back up at Tsunade, who shrugged nonchalantly.

"I was hungry while studying them." She breezed past him, smiling and waving at the two brothers through the open door. A few minutes later, Shizune was finished with her brief check-up and as she hurried to her next patient, she told Naruto that there was a wheelchair outside the door for Ed to use.

Peering out the door, Naruto found the wheelchair; it was fairly old, its dark red upholstery faded and patched in places and the metal frame looked in need of a good polish. Wheeling it into the room, banging the door frame and leaving a dent, Naruto discovered that its wheels were thankfully well oiled with no squeaking and it moved smoothly, despite its forlorn appearance.

Moving the wheelchair to rest perpendicular to the bed, Naruto wondered if he was supposed to lift Ed into the chair also. Why the hell had he been stuck with this?! he groaned. How far was he supposed to go in helping them? Even though Tsunade had said she'd been told he was good with kids, he didn't know how to deal with these two. The decision was made for him when Ed leaned forward, grabbed the armrest in one hand and swung around, pivoting on one of the footrests to set himself down in the chair. Ed looked up, glaring, as if to say, 'I do _not_ need your help with that.' It reminded Naruto too much of Sasuke's glares. But Sasuke's glare didn't soften like Ed's when he looked at other people. Ed's glare melted away when Al slid off the bed to stand next to him. Naruto shook his head sourly; and he was looking after these two to try and distract himself from Sasuke, not to think _more_ about his stupid teammate.

The two were watching him curiously – Ed's neck twisted at a painful angle from his position in the wheelchair.

"Food," Naruto said, pointing to his open mouth. To drive the point further, he also pointed to the empty plate on the windowsill.

The two brothers smiled at him, understanding the gesture and nodding, before starting a conversation in their own language, chattering away at each other with speed.

Getting a firm grip on the handles, Naruto began to move the two out of the room. Before they'd gone more than a few steps, he noticed Al looking somewhat uncomfortable. He kept on glancing at Ed and then to Naruto. Ed sighed when he saw this, muttering something under his breath and directing his words to Al. Whatever Ed was saying it caused Al to glance down at what was left of his arm and then his gaze went to the handles clasped in Naruto's hands.

Walking down the near empty corridor and avoiding the occasional nurse or doctor rushing to deal with some emergency it took a while for Naruto to realise what was bothering Al: he wanted to be the one pushing the wheelchair but with his handicap, he'd have problems steering.

Not knowing what to say Naruto grinned at him and Al smiled back. Unseen by Ed, who sat facing forwards in the wheelchair, Naruto's grin turned sneaky and then he pretended to swerve the wheelchair out of control.

Ed _squawked_, flailing wildly, fearing that he was about to crash into something or topple over. When the wheelchair finally stopped he twisted around sharply, ready to berate the clumsy blond pushing him; but then Al's muffled giggle behind his hand reached him. Then he had a slightly different reason for shouting.

'_Damn,_' Naruto thought, a bit awed. '_He's louder than me; that actually_ hurt.'

* * *

The quote's from Arthur Conan Doyle's character Sherlock Holmes. Hey, they quoted The Fly once. ;)

I realised while writing the later part of this chapter, that Ed and Al are around about the same ages of the main cast. ; I kept on thinking that they were a lot younger since Ed's about fifteen during most of the manga/anime later on. But anyway, the comment that Tsunade made about 'From Wave Country to Fire Country, it was quite a distance for ones so young' is because she thinks Ed and Al are around about eight to ten years old since no-one's asked them their age it is wasn't an important question to ask.

I'm using Ishval and Ishvalan instead of Ishbal because that was how it'd been spelled in the earlier manga chapters. And I like the sound of them better.

The next update will **not **be on the second of January. Sorry. Exams are making me nuts at the moment and I've sworn myself off of the 'net until the twenty-first of January when the last of my exams are done and dusted as of the twenty-sixth of December. The only thing I'm going online for is to check my e-mails and for uni - so while I'll be able to read any new reviews, I won't be answering them until I come back 'officially'.


	5. Watching

**Summary**: (Fullmetal Alchemist/ Naruto crossover) Ed and Al tried to resurrect their Mother but something went wrong. Not only did they fail, their bodies paying the price, but they are no longer in Amestris. They are in a world where all the natural rules aren't always obeyed...

Finally back with a new chapter. Sorry I wasn't able to update last month but I was going to have my exams the next week and my beta-reader hadn't gotten back to me yet because she was busy around that period as well. The new semester's started for me and I still haven't written any new chapters for this yet. Mainly because I've hit a road block and might be scrapping my original plan of what was going to happen later on. But that should be okay because that was boring anyway. ;p

After talking about it with my beta-reader, I've decided to switch the names around for the Naruto cast. I've edited the last two chapters to show this with a bit of added dialogue but it's only a couple of lines that doesn't affect the overall storyline apart form Ed and Al calling Tsunade Hokage now.:3 I'm not sure I've caught all of the changes though.

Thanks to all the people who reviewed, added this to their favourites and alerts the last chapter and for waiting patiently for me to update. And also thanks to my beta-reader, Krows Scared. :)

* * *

**Fullmetal Ninja**

By Dark Ice Dragon**  
**

Watching

* * *

Ears still ringing from Ed's outburst, the three boys made it to the canteen a few minutes later. Naruto felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle as he sensed the glares coming from all around as soon as he stepped into the room, but he ignored them as he always did. Hey, they could be glaring because of the racket that Ed had just shouted up and it had absolutely nothing to do with him. Or they could be blaming him for making Ed yell in the first place. It ended with the same thing really.

The three of them joined in the queue to the till, Ed and Al peering curiously at the sandwiches laid out in front of them. After a few seconds of staring, they selected two different types and put them on the tray, both looking like they were hoping the food tasted like it looked. Naruto didn't hold many expectations that they would. The canteen didn't sell ramen; a fact which Naruto had found out a long time ago but it still annoyed him no end and so he also grudgingly, selected a sandwich for himself.

The two were getting fidgety - Naruto could see it in the way their heads kept on turning slightly to the side and then looking forward again that they were observing something but not wanting to be seen doing it. Which, after staring at everything and not caring, it was different behaviour for them. But they hadn't been around a lot of people yet (as far as he knew) so they could just be shy of large groups. Their voices were muted too, like they were trying not to be overheard. Naruto snorted and the two boys looked back at him; curiosity and worry flickered across their faces.

The dark haired woman behind the counter was eyeing Naruto distrustfully and scowled at him as the distance between them got steadily smaller and smaller. As soon as she realised Naruto was watching, she turned back to the person she was serving, a smile plastered on her face.

Al murmured something to Ed, who nodded.

When it was their turn to be served, the woman took in the Elrics' missing limbs and asked them in a sugary tone, "Are you patients here?" Completely ignoring Naruto as he stood there.

"They are," Naruto answered for them, "so just charge me the water and the chicken sandwich." Of _course_ they were patients here, what kind of stupid question was that? The bandages and wheelchair were enough evidence.

"I'm sure they can answer for themselves," she said archly, puffing up and looking down her nose at him. Naruto heard some muttering coming from behind him but didn't bother listening to what was being said.

Naruto shrugged and lightly hit the top of Ed's head with a loose fist. Ed's reaction was to whirl around and start another tirade (this time more muttered than shouted), hand on the spot and half-glaring at him. Al said something to Ed and it quietened him down, though he was still glaring.

"They don't speak our language," he stated, unnecessarily. Naruto stared at her, a small careless grin on his face, challenging her to deny the fact all the same.

The woman stared at him longer than necessary, her face pale, before telling him the price of his food. He handed over the correct amount of change and before the woman's hand was even pulling away, Al was tugging at Naruto's jacket and pointing to one of the tables in the far corner.

Sitting around it -after moving one of the chairs so that Ed could sit with them easier- Naruto was then able to see the two boys' faces properly: Ed's was darkened with anger and Al was frowning slightly as well.

Ed's gold eyes met Naruto's blue ones and he indicated the woman with a backward nod of the head. "Fucking-" He stopped and huffed. Al didn't react to the word other than surprised curiosity. How and when did he learn to swear when they didn't know any other words? With a sigh, Ed barked softly.

Al's eyes widened at the implication. "_Ed_!" he hissed and slapped his shoulder.

Ed scowled at him before saying something back. After shaking his head and replying, Al turned to Naruto. "Naruto?"

With no way to explain anything to them, Naruto shrugged and waved a hand dismissively; there wasn't a specific gesture that meant 'normal' that he knew of and it wasn't as if he was going to explain the Kyuubi to them.

The two exchanged glances whilst Naruto started eating his sandwich, Ed and Al following shortly after. Naruto had already eaten half when he heard someone call his name. Eyes flicking up to the person, Naruto half-choked when he saw it was Ino. "What're _you_ doing here?"

"Visiting Sasuke and Sakura, of course," she said with a grin and a wink. Naruto felt a hint of anger and guilt at the reminder of his teammates but before he was able to tell her that Sasuke wasn't around at the moment, she'd turned her attention to the other boys at the table. "Hi!"

"Hi," they repeated. They then looked at Naruto for confirmation. "Hi?"

"Uh, hi," Naruto said with a little uncertainty as he waved a hand at them for a demonstration.

Al's eyebrows were scrunched up in concentration. "Bye?"

Naruto shook his head.

"Hmm." The two started rapidly talking it over for a few seconds before nodding and then waving at Ino. "Hi."

Ino was pulling off an expression that was both puzzled and amused. "Hi." Her eyes focussed on him. "Naruto…?"

"They don't speak our language." And after saying that phrase twice in five minutes, Naruto was already considering putting a sign around their necks proclaiming the fact; it was getting _annoying_. Sighing, Naruto waved a hand in Ino's direction. "Ino." Then he waved the other in the brothers' direction. "Ed and Al."

Both of whom were staring at Ino, twin confused expressions on their faces. Ed looked at Naruto. "Ino… no…" He pointed to his eyes. No eyes? What did he mean by that? Seeing his bafflement, Ed tried again - this time, he covered his eyes with his hands.

No eyes. Can't see. Blind. Naruto shook his head quickly. To demonstrate that she could see, Naruto threw his half-empty bottle (cap on properly) to Ino. She caught it with one hand, and with a glint in her eye, she threw it back at Naruto's head. But he still caught it anyway.

What made them think she was blind?

xXx

When was this world going to make sense? Ed grumbled to himself. Ino shouldn't be able to see; she didn't have _pupils_. If she didn't have pupils, light couldn't get into her eyes. That meant images of the outside world weren't getting in either so there wasn't anything resting on the retina so nothing was being sent to the brain via the optic nerve. She _should_ be blind.

But she wasn't. Naruto proved that she could see properly when he threw the bottle at her and she caught it, eyes tracking its movement and reflexes too fast to be catching it from sound alone. She'd even sent it back to him, aiming for his head deliberately – or it had seemed like that anyway. Taking in the tables, chairs and people around them, she would have needed a walking stick to manoeuvre through it all with no incidents and she had done so without one. And she'd found Naruto when he hadn't been saying anything at the time so she had to have seen him then.

Had she been born like that? Had her body mutated in such a way to compensate for her lack of pupils? Were her irises somehow also her pupils at the same time? Which didn't make any sense when he thought about it properly. Ed's head was whirling from all the questions being generated and no answers were forthcoming. Again.

Or was this completely normal for this world? He and Al had talked about the possibility of things being vastly different on this world; not that they had wholly accepted it, just hypothesising, from no Alchemy existing to the magic in fairytales that their Mother used to tell them when they were younger being as easy as saying just specific words. To find out, they would have to at least get out of the hospital to see what the other people were like in their daily lives. So far, what they had seen was what they had expected and nothing too out of the ordinary for them.

Apart from the stares and the angry muttering that surrounded them when they entered the dining area. To start with, they had thought that it was directed towards them, before seeing that they were glaring _over_ their heads. Naruto didn't notice, or pretended not to. They couldn't ask why, and then they noticed a third expression on some people's faces: fear. There were a few more empty tables than when they had entered five minutes before. Ed and Al watched the groups as they chivvied stragglers and warily glanced over their shoulders every few seconds as they did.

It was as if they were expecting Naruto to attack them for no reason.

Which was another thing that didn't make sense. He was loud but he wasn't _dangerous_. What did they think he'd do – shout them to death?

When they'd sat down at the table after Naruto's brief staring match with the woman at the till they discovered that Naruto _did_ know what was happening around him but what did that wave mean? Ignore it, don't talk about it? Argh… There really had to be some way to learn the local language quickly. There had to be at least one person who spoke the same language as them. Had to be.

Ed scowled thinking over what he had just gone over in his head, annoyed at his thoughts.

Which one did he believe – that he and Al were in a completely different world or that they were on some undiscovered continent of their own world?

So why had his earlier thoughts been using 'this world' rather than 'this place' without him noticing and seeing nothing wrong with it - just accepting it?

xXx

Tsunade frowned, staring at the thickness of the Wave Country folder and suppressed a sigh. It wasn't _that_ thick, not when you compared its size to other countries like Fire Country; it made it look downright tiny but she really didn't want to go through more paperwork. All she was doing was going through the recent, and not-so-recent if her original search proved futile, missions to Wave to see if any of the ninja who'd gone there were still in Konoha at the moment. Not likely with the current state of things but at least she'd know who to talk to once they had returned. It would also decide what odds there were that the ninja who had been there knew of the Elrics.

Her eyes skimmed over the report in her hand. A C-rank mission being upgraded to a higher B-/lower A-rank mission. The team had refused to cancel the mission and it had ended in quite a battle on the Great Naruto Bridge-

What.

That was too much of a coincidence. Naruto wasn't a common name and the chances that the name was connected to the Naruto that she knew… She glanced back to the top of the report – it was dated just over two months ago. A Genin team with Hatake Kakashi as the Jounin leader.

Well, that was interesting.

Eyeing the folder again, Tsunade decided to leave the rest of the reports for the time being. She had an elusive Jounin to talk to.

xXx

Al watched as Ed half-hopped from the wheelchair onto the bed and twisted around on his palms with ease. Naruto looked at the wheelchair in puzzlement for a few seconds before he shrugged and kicked it back lightly so it rolled back and hit the other bed. Then he plopped down in it haphazardly, grumbling to himself.

Hmm. Al's eyes wandered across the room slowly. They hadn't learned _that_ much of this language -not to mention the horrors of grammar- but every word they knew would hopefully get them closer to understanding and to be understood. Even if it was just everyday items. So he looked around and tried to remember the pronunciations.

When his eyes passed the door, Al was startled to see a face peering in. He was a boy, either a few years younger than himself or the same age, with a pair of thick goggles covering all of his forehead. The boy stared at Naruto's back, missing that Al was watching him, and tip-toed in, bringing his knees up high with every step.

Ed had seen him too, though it wasn't hard since they were both facing the door whilst Naruto was facing the wall behind them; he was now looking at them curiously.

He turned around to see what they were staring at. "What's-"

That was when the boy sprung, quickly scrambling over the bed and launching himself at Naruto's head with a loud war cry. Al and Ed could only watch in disbelief as the two fought each other in front of them with full-throated yells; they could both see however, that Naruto wasn't taking it very seriously or really attempting to hit the other boy, just holding him off.

"Do you think they're brothers?" Al mused out loud.

Ed snorted. "Yeah."

None of the words being shouted were anything Al had heard before (but he was betting that Ed was somehow picking up all the wrong words from his previous example at the cafeteria) though Naruto's name was cropping up every couple of sentences.

"Huh." Al turned to look at his brother. "Their fighting styles… It's a bit like what Teacher taught us," Ed said, a concentrated frown on his face.

With that piece of information, Al turned his attention back to the other two boys. Even though their fighting was rowdy, they were able to keep themselves to the other half of the room, somehow not disturbing anything (apart from their eardrums) while they were literally bouncing off of the walls. Their fighting style _was_ similar but there were some differences – like their centre of balance was much lower than what was normal for he and his brother, and the younger boy did a lot more grappling, though that was probably due to the difference in sizes.

Just as Al came to that conclusion, the younger boy misjudged the strength of a jump and barrelled backwards into him.

* * *

(flails) You barely get any dates about how long things take inbetween stuff and how long it takes to get to place. Just 'it'll take a while' or something. But there was the month wait between the second and third part of the Chuunin exams so I based the two months between the end of the Wave arc and now off of that.

The kid at the end who attacked Naruto is Konohamaru, the grandson of the Third Hokage (Tsunade's the Fifth) and he sees Naruto as his rival.

I'm in university, doing a Psychology course. One of my modules this semester is 'Psychology of Language and Thinking' and I had the first lecture on Monday. I had so much fun when I learned just how much problems there are going to be for Ed and Al to _really_ learn the language. Things like grammar (which I knew when I was writing this chapter); syntax (I kinda knew but wasn't _too_ bothered by for some reason); pronounciations; the double meanings for words in some languages but not others; when language is spoken, they usually aren't grammatically correct; knowing what a person means because of the context; and slang to name a few. D: Joy. This'll be fun to do. Buut, the good thing is, Ed and Al aren't learning language completely from scratch so a few of these will be confusing but they should be able to get through it eventually.

Plus, later on, we'll be taught the difference between an expert and novice writer. :D Can't wait to find out just how bad I am. But that's gonna be in seven weeks so I'm gonna have to wait. (Standard disclaimer: Ignore me when I complain about stuff like this, i.e. writing, because it's a habit that I do and I do it about anything I do. Believe me, I'll say anything I do is bad because I'm fairly critical of my stuff. And I'm the sort of person who pokes fun at themselves on a regular basis but I don't really mean anything by it. Basically, don't take me seriously when I complain. :3)

The next update will be on the fifth of March. :) Until then.

Edit: 03/03/08. The next update might not actually be on the fifth of March. I'm still waiting for Krows Scared to get back to me. Also, just as a heads up, I've got most of the seventh chapter done but there's some stuff which I want to add to it. I normally send the next chapter for beta-ing once I've posted a chapter and it usually takes her about a month to get back to me so yeah, the seventh chapter might take longer than a month to get out. Also around about that time, I'll be handing in coursework so that'll slow things down in the writing stage too.


	6. Dreams

**Summary**: (Fullmetal Alchemist/ Naruto crossover) Ed and Al tried to resurrect their Mother but something went wrong. Not only did they fail, their bodies paying the price, but they are no longer in Amestris. They are in a world where all the natural rules aren't always obeyed...

Thanks to all the people who've reviewed, added this fic to their favourites and alerts. And also thanks to my beta-reader, Krows Scared, for going over this and adding the last paragraph in the Tsunade and Kakashi scene. :)

* * *

**Fullmetal Ninja**

By Dark Ice Dragon**  
**

Dreams

* * *

Tsunade looked up from the documents she was signing as a knock sounded on her office door. Calling permission for whoever it was to enter she continued to watch as the door opened almost immediately, revealing Kakashi who sauntered over to the desk, hands in pockets before straightening up and tilting his head slightly in respect.

"Lady Hokage, you sent for me?" Kakashi asked, his visible eye only half open and bored looking. Anyone who didn't know the Jounin would be yelling at him to wake up and show more respect but Tsunade knew it was only a façade. He still looked tired, but had convinced her that he was fit and well enough to be back on duty the day after she had healed him.

The Hokage frowned, trying to remember just how long ago it had been since she'd summoned him. The specifics were uncertain due to a sudden influx of missions – or was that because she'd ignored them whilst she was in the hospital? She couldn't think.

"Kakashi, yes." She placed the pen back in its holder, secretly pleased at the distraction and picked up the report she'd put to one side earlier, glancing over its contents again. "You and your team were in Wave Country just over two months ago," she stated not looking up from the report.

She saw him nod thoughtfully. "Yes, it was an interesting mission. Is Tazuna requesting our assistance again?" Interesting, he says. Tsunade almost laughed out loud ruefully at that comment. At the end of the battle, after … -she checked the name again- Haku made the ultimate sacrifice, Kakashi and his team had somehow convinced Zabuza, a dangerous missing-nin of the Hidden Mist village and hired to kill Tazuna, to not fight them but to fight Gatou, his employer, instead. Even with all the injuries Zabuza sustained from his battle with Kakashi, he was still able to get past all the bodyguards and hired muscle to kill Gatou. No longlasting injuries were reported in Kakashi's team, a fact which Tsunade didn't quite believe. Definitely a different kind of mission from the norm.

Tsunade glanced up from the report. "Other than Zabuza and Haku, did you meet or see any other ninja?"

Kakashi tilted his head up in thought. "Two brothers – called themselves the Demon Brothers."

"Hmm." She had known that from the report and if it had been any other Jounin she may have suspected that further information had been ommited from the report or they hadn't been paying close enough attention to their surroundings. However, this was Hatake Kakashi; former ANBU and student of the Fourth. With the type of mission it was, to not notice other ninja and make note of it would very likely end with death. Wave Country didn't have a Hidden Village so the presence of ninja there would have been suspicious without anything else happening at the time, and there would have been no cause to omit any information in the report anyway.

Placing the report back on the desk, Tsunade carefully considered her words. "I'm sure you felt that chakra signature to the south yesterday – nothing has been found to explain it; where it came from or where it went." Tsunade intertwined her fingers and rested her chin on them. "However, the five ANBU I sent to the scene found two civilian boys there. From what I've been able to ascertain, they're from Wave Country."

"So you think they were victims of a kidnapping," Kakashi concluded.

Tsunade snorted and shook her head. "I don't know; _they_ don't know either. They act like civilians but they have a physical characteristic that's usual more for ninja, as well as both of them being able to perform a jutsu that I've never seen before. With no hand seals."

"No hand seals," Kakashi started, eye widening. "So it's a bloodline limit." He was watching her carefully now with his visible eye, casual attitude gone. His body language mostly unreadable even to Tsunade, who wasn't surprised. Bloodline limits were the only things that the Sharingan couldn't copy and with no hand seals, it reduced the time of activation making it even more dangerous. That alone would make a ninja wary of someone with a bloodline limit but with the troubles Kakashi and his team had had with Haku, it would make anyone more cautious.

"The strange thing is, I don't think they know how dangerous a bloodline limit can be," Tsunade mused. "The way they were acting when I saw them use it, it must have been the first time it had surfaced and they didn't fear it or try to hide it." She paused. "It means that they know about their bloodline limit, were told about it and what it can do but they have no ninja training which doesn't make any sense." Had the community they live in been accepting of the difference between them and their family? Maybe they didn't know that being able to do that was associated with ninja or even that people like ninja existed. Or one or both their parents were missing-nin but never told the boys they were, but instead told them what abilities they could possibly inherit in the future.

"You want me to see if I recognise them," Kakashi stated reaching one hand behind him.

Tsunade nodded. From what little she knew about those two, it was very likely that they were from one of the surrounding islands rather than the main. Even though there was little chance of Kakashi recognising the two, she still had to be sure.

"And no reading that perverted trash that Jiraya writes around them either," she yelled standing up suddenly and slamming both hands on her desk hard enough to crack the wood. Kakashi quickly backed away several steps before disappearing in a cloud of smoke. Shizune stuck her head in through the door clutching Ton-ton to her chest and sighed as she took in the sight of Konoha's Hokage spitting like a cat and standing over yet another broken desk.

xXx 

_Al dreamed. _

"Class, I want you to work out these sums I've written up on the board," Miss Bartul said, book open in front of her and pointing to the blackboard, chalk still in hand.

His eyes flicked up to the blackboard for a few seconds and then bowed his head again. Ed didn't even bother doing that and kept working on their calculations – or he hadn't heard what she'd said, too engrossed in what he was doing. Quickly jotting down the answers on another page, Al looked over his equations and workings. Compared to what they were being 'taught' in class right then (something they'd learned to do by themselves a long time ago) this was a lot more complicated. But they'd be able to do it, he just knew it.

"Ed! Al! Pay attention!"

_oOo_

Ed looked over his shoulder, grinning back at him as they ran down the road full pelt. They stopped beside a rock at the side of the road which was nearly as tall as they were, their usual marker for the finish line. For them it was usually an even chance who could win but today, he won by a large margin because of what Ed was carrying in his arms.

Flopping down on the cool grass, they waited for their breathing to even out and for their hearts to slow down. Taking in big gulping breaths and grinning at the same time wasn't exactly easy but they still did it - they couldn't help it.

The minutes stretched out, even after everything had gone back to normal. The soft, cool breeze caressed his warm skin and the quiet sound of the tall grass moving was soothing; the sun vanished behind a cloud at that moment but there wasn't enough cloud cover for that to last long. Not that he minded either way.

Ed turned around so that he was now lying on his stomach and facing towards him. "What do you think Mum'll think when we show her what we can do now?" he asked, the grin still on his face and his cheeks still flushed pink.

"She'll be surprised," he guessed. They had stayed up late that night, reading and translating some more of Father's journals. While they weren't able to understand what was being said at the time, after a few hours sleep and some more hours spent thinking about it (during school hours, but Mum didn't have to know that) they were able to figure it out. They had the theory down and now all they had to do was practice.

"Yup." With a huff of air, Ed scrambled to his feet and picked up the basket of apples he'd been carrying. "Race you home!" Before he'd finished the challenge, Ed was already sprinting away, laughing.

"Hey!" Al scrambled to his feet and pelted after his brother. "No fair!"

Even with Ed's head start, he was still able to catch up by the time they reached their front door.

"I won! Mum, we're – Mum? _Mum!_"

_oOo_

"Al!"

He tore his eyes away from his predicament and stretched out a hand for Ed. Both knew doing that wouldn't help them in the slightest but they still tried, exertion and fear coursing through them.

He was suddenly stumbling forward and nearly fell to his knees. _'What-?'_ Where was he? It was an open place; all white with nothing in it. Or almost nothing, he amended when he turned around to see a dark… something that looked like it was made of stone and several times his size. There was a tree engraved on its surface and it simply floated there – as far as he could see, there wasn't anything holding it up.

_-'Hey.'-_

_Definitely_ almost nothing as he turned to see the person who spoke. It took a few seconds as he was turning around, to realise that he hadn't actually heard the word spoken but rather, it had echoed in his mind.

"What – um. Hello." A humanoid figure sat on the ground a few feet away, but that was all he could tell – other than the aura around it, it was completely blank. Featureless like a mannequin.

_-'Ah, a polite one,'-_ the being said happily. _-'Polite in one way but not in another,'-_ it said cryptically.

What did _that_ mean? As far as he was aware of, he was always polite. Who had he offended? And what did he do to offend them? "Who are you?" he asked. He didn't want to talk to whatever it was without knowing its (?) name or just calling it 'you'.

_-'That, is an interesting question,'-_ it said, nodding. _-'I'm what you humans refer to as the world. Also known as the "universe" or "God" or "True Knowledge" or "all" or "one".'- _

'But then, that would mean –'

-'And…'-

A hand was raised and pointed at him. _-'I'm you!'- _

'That doesn't make any sense!'

There was a large, slow ominous creak behind him. Since the only other thing in this space was that stone tablet, it could only be that making the noise. _Why_ did it sound like it was a creaky old door opening?

**_'Welcome, fool.'_**

He froze at the voice, echoing much more than the first, being much deeper and making his very bones vibrate. He unfroze when something –so cold!- wound around his legs like a second skin. Black. It was pure black and… looked like it had a hand on one end. Then another twisted quickly around his other leg and even though it was impossible, nothing was there to help it do that. It moved like a snake and of its own volition.

His thoughts were disrupted when those black things just _yanked_ his feet from under him. For a split second, he thought his back was going to impact with the ground painfully but he didn't. More of those things had wound unnoticed around his upper body and 'restrained' him. He'd been trying to get out of their grasp from the start but it wasn't any use; they were far too quick despite his desperate struggles.

They weren't just supporting him he realised – they were pulling him backwards. Pulling him towards the door.

The being said one more thing before the doors closed. _-'I'll show you True Knowledge.'-_

Al wanted to yell out, scream as what felt like thousands and thousands of bits and pieces of information were unceremoniously shoved into his brain. He instinctively grabbed at one of the arms, Teacher's lessons ingrained, and pulled, not knowing why he was doing it.

It loosened its grip on him as did the others. He found himself with his back pressed up to that door. But he wasn't in that white place anymore; this place was all black but for a tiny sliver of light coming through the small opening. He was _not_ going to stare at that gigantic eye hovering right in front of him.

His right hand spasmed and he looked down – a thin red light which disappeared off into the dark void was connected to it. Pulling at his hand he felt the light somehow pull taut. There was a feeling of familiarity to it… Ed?

Somehow knowing that wherever he went, Ed would follow him through the connection, he squeezed his way through the crack.

_oOo_

Al twitched as he woke up, disorientated by the white walls for a few seconds before remembering he was in a hospital. He knew he'd been dreaming but he couldn't remember what about. He had a vague recollection of his Mother but that was about it.

All thoughts of elusive dreams left him as he realised there was someone standing by the window.

* * *

Not too pleased with this chapter. Especially the last dream. (pokes ending) But you finally find out there was a proper reason for what's happened! Jeez, it was this that sparked off this entire crossover too. D: Booo. It somehow made sense when I was begining to type this out all those months ago (snerk) but actually getting it down was just... And I think I may have changed the 'revolving door' bit and just made it 'new door'. That's was basically the idea - the Gate of Truth wasn't just a doorway (animé spoiler edit) but it acted more like a revolving door so you could get out at a different place.

Yeah, would you believe me if I said that I actually started writing this fic last April and have only gotten to the seventh chapter? Told ya I'm a slow writer.

I wanted to put the dreams in italics but since over half of it is dreams, that'd be a bit of an eyesore. The dreams aren't in chronological order and since they're from Al's point of view, it's a bit weird to refer to yourself as your name so it's just 'he' instead.

For some reason, I can't see my regular scene breaker. I can see the dream ones but... (grumble grumble) I bet it's only my computer where this shows. But if it isn't, I guess I'll be using xXx now for scene breaks. Which is reminding me of the movie. Bleh. 

The next update should be on the second of April. _Should_ be, because I've got and essay and a report to hand in the following week of the next update and I haven't completed the seventh chapter yet so it might be late again.


	7. Seeing is Believing

**Summary**: (Fullmetal Alchemist/ Naruto crossover) Ed and Al tried to resurrect their Mother but something went wrong. Not only did they fail, their bodies paying the price, but they are no longer in Amestris. They are in a world where all the natural rules aren't always obeyed...

(gapes) Wow. I recieved the largest number of reviews for one chapter that I've ever had for the last chapter. For a multi-chaptered fic anyway. But the one-shot that has the highest number of reviews has been up for over two years so yeah... To me, that's kinda amazing.

Erk, sorry if I _still_ haven't answered your review. Or that it took me ages to reply back. I'll try and get back to you today.

fanfic(dot)net's stripped my colon-dash etc. scene breakers so I'm using xXx for the moment. I'm thinking about waiting for the new upgrades that the admins are saying are coming up and seeing if I should go back and then change my breakers to the actual line ones.

Thanks to all the people who've reviewed, added this fic to their favourites and/or story alerts, or added me to their favourite author's list or author alerts, or just read my fic. And, obviously, thanks to my beta-reader, Krows Scared. :) I also want to thank Lucathia Rykatu for answering my questions on Japanese phases, even though it kinda didn't come up here explicitly.

So, enough blabbing (since my notes seem to be getting longer and longer per chapter) and on to the chapter!

* * *

**Fullmetal Ninja**

By Dark Ice Dragon**  
**

Seeing is Believing

* * *

Al stared at the window, feeling the exact second when his body reacted in fear; a shiver shot down his spine, his body felt as though someone had flipped a switch, turning everything cold, blood roared in his ears and every one of his senses focused in front of him; one of the beings from the door was sitting on the windowsill.

It wasn't like the one he'd first encountered since this one was the exact opposite; pitch-black instead of white (or had that one been transparent?) but it was similar enough. It was also smaller, Al realised after a closer inspection - and it hadn't moved since he'd woken up. Slowly and carefully, Al eased himself up into a sitting position against the headboard. This being was just as featureless and genderless as its counterpart, with nothing to indicate any sort of individuality. Clues in its body language suggested that it was probably gazing out of the window and not staring straight at him even though it felt that way. That was the weird thing: it was sitting in direct sunlight but still looked like it was bathed in shadow with no features highlighted. Al suppressed another shiver.

Just as Al started to think he was still dreaming the being giggled, bringing a hand to where its mouth would be and turned towards him. Al blanched at the sound; it was childlike in pitch and quality but there was an echo behind it that changed the feeling to something more sinister.

"Where are you?" it asked in the echoing silence, moving its hand back down to the window. Al had been watching for it but there wasn't any movement where its lips would be; its jaw hadn't even moved. He would have wondered if it was actually talking out loud or speaking directly into his mind if he wasn't in danger of disappearing.

"On the other side of the planet," Al answered, not sure why he was. Still feeling his heart beating a staccato, he forced himself not to wipe his hand on the sheets despite his palm feeling clammy with sweat, but he was pleased that his voice only quavered slightly.

"Are you sure?"

What? Of course he was sure. There were no other logical reasons for what he and Ed had seen and learned. Al nodded. "Yes."

The being laughed, its voice deeper than before, adding more layers to the echo. _'This is a dream isn't it?'_ Al's thoughts started to quicken and panic started to set in. There was no reason for the beings from that place to be here – or was _this_ place the dream? Which one was real? Maybe they had never left that white space in the first place. Or maybe that place had never existed. Was he starting to hallucinate?

Suddenly, Al's circling thoughts were disrupted by the sound of the door opening. Distracted, Al glanced across the room. _'What would the being do if it was seen by other people? Would it send them to another world as well?'_ He had to warn whoever was coming in! Al took a deep breath and nearly choked on it the next second when he realised that the being was no longer there. _'Where – where did it go?'_ He scoured the room for it but there was no trace. _Was_ it just a hallucination? Al bit his lip, worried. But he was sure he'd seen and heard it. It couldn't have disappeared like that – but it seemed like it had just appeared out of nowhere.

"Yo." Shoving these thoughts to the back of his mind, Al looked at the newcomer and stared. A man stood before him with grey hair that stuck up in a way that defied gravity, but it wasn't this which surprised Al the most. Only a small portion of his face was visible, the rest was covered by a black cloth mask and that headband/belt that he had seen on other people.

Al glanced back to the window in case the being had reappeared but it was empty. Still warily regarding the window, Al waved to the man. "Hello."

The strange man sauntered over to the spare bed opposite Al and Ed's and leaned against it watching them lazily through one visible eye. His gaze continued to flit between the two boys for a few seconds before settling on Al. He asked a question and he was surprised when the mask hadn't muffled the man's words as much as Al thought it would.

Remembering some of the questions that some of the friendlier nurses and doctors had asked him and his brother, Al responded. "Al Elric," he stated, pointing to his chest before pointing to his slumbering brother. "Ed Elric." Moving his arm reminded him sharply where Naruto's little brother had landed on him earlier as he felt a slight pull in the muscles. Another light poke revealed that the spot was tender even though there were no signs of bruising but it wasn't something that couldn't be ignored. He had a few scratches on him from when Ed had yanked Naruto's brother off of him a bit too fast, along with a spectacular bruise on his shin from a flailing foot. He was lucky that they people liked wearing sandals –if a little heavier than the ones he knew- and not the boots Winry was starting to wear.

Hearing his name, Ed's brow creased as he woke up slowly, mumbling something Al didn't hear. The man watched Ed as he did. Ed blearily caught a short glimpse of the man when he then pushed himself off the bed and then left without another word, leaving Al to simply stare as Ed finally came to full awareness.

What had he come in for? He couldn't have been someone who was sent to look after them since he'd only stayed about three minutes at most and the way he'd looked at Ed... Maybe he was confirming something? But what? That they both had gold eyes? Having gold eyes was a bit uncommon, but Al didn't think it was rare enough to warrant just wandering in to where the person was sleeping just to settle a curiosity. Al's eyes flicked to the window again. Still nothing. Was it just a –

"Al?" He turned to look at his brother. Ed was peering at him in concern as he got up to lean on the headboard next to him, grunting a little.

"Hmm?"

"What's wrong?" he asked. "You're really pale." Ed's face darkened. "Did that guy try something? If he did, I'm gonna-"

Al cut him off with a shake of his head. "He'd just come in when you woke up," he explained.

There was a brief silence as Ed waited for Al to tell him what was actually bothering him.

"I think I saw..." Al trailed off, not sure what to say. He took a deep breath and shook his head once more before starting again. "I think I saw one of the beings from that door just before the man came into the room."

There was a violent 'whoosh' of air next to him as Ed exhaled quickly. Looking at his brother, Al noted that Ed had gone wide eyed and as pale as he probably was right now. "Did it say anything – _do_ anything to you?" Ed demanded as he checked Al over to make sure that he was in the same condition as he had been when Ed saw him last.

"I'm fine," he reassured Ed. "It didn't do anything – we talked. That was it." Which obviously wasn't the right thing to say.

"That was it?" Ed repeated incredulously, his voice rising. "That was _it?_ Right after I talked to something from there the last time, we ended up on another planet!" Ed froze from his rant before his face screwed up in anger. "Argh! Fuck! On the other side of the world - _not_ another planet!" he corrected himself harshly, clutching his head.

"It wasn't exactly the same as that one; this one was completely black," Al told Ed softly, ignoring his slip – he had been doing the same in his own thoughts. "Its voice was different. Younger. Creepier." There were too many ways he could describe the being's voice and most contradicted each other so Al didn't even try.

Ed mulled this information over. "So what did you talk about?"

Al looked to the window, just to make sure it hadn't reappeared there. "It asked if I knew where I was. When I said the other side of the planet, it laughed." Saying that brought back the sound it had made and Al grimaced as the sound grated on his nerves and resonated in his head.

An elbow poked his side lightly and Al snapped his head back to his brother who was watching him in concern again. "If it was going to come back, it would have already." Ed sighed and slouched further on the bed. "It was probably lying anyway. Who knows; maybe that's just another way they get their kicks." Ed snorted and crossed his arms.

Thinking over his words, Al could see Ed's point; it didn't completely erase the worry but it did ease it somewhat. Quite a few of his reactions would have been from the adrenaline running in his system and the fear of what could happen next. Al wiped his still clammy palms on the covers to dry them; his heart had at least slowed down to its regular beat and he no longer felt the chill down his spine.

"Who was the old guy who came in?" Ed asked.

Al looked at his brother in confusion. "Who?" They had both fallen asleep around the same time and he had woken up before Ed – how would he know he had come into the room? He might have woken up earlier but went back to sleep, he reasoned.

Ed waved his hand to indicate the door. "The old guy who just left when I woke up."

Oh. Him. But he didn't really look that old, Al realised, only that he had grey hair; in the little of his face that could be seen, there weren't any visible wrinkles and he was a healthy colour. "I don't think he's that old," he said out loud. "He just had premature grey hair."

"Hmm. I guess." Ed wrinkled his nose. "I wonder what happened to him to make him cover his face like that."

"It's probably a big scar," Al said, mulling it over. "He didn't have any difficulty speaking and his voice was normal."

Ed looked thoughtful, nodding his head slowly. "That would mean that the scar would probably cover his eye down to his opposite cheek. _Ouch_."

"I wonder why he's wearing that headband too," Al mused. Why didn't he use another piece of cloth? The headband might have been easier to put on but it wouldn't cover as much. Maybe he just didn't want to wear two pieces of cloth on his head.

Ed nodded. "Naruto and Ino were wearing one too – I thought it was some sort of fashion thing but if an adult's wearing one, that can't be right. Hmm." He scratched his head as he thought.

The headbands were the same, had the same insignia, possibly worn in specific places. "Do you think it's a symbol for something?" Al asked. "Like how State Alchemists have a silver watch with the military symbol engraved on it. It says that they're State Alchemists to other people."

"That would make sense," Ed said with a frown. "But what could kids do that's the same to adults? I mean Naruto and Ino don't look any older than us and if it really _was_ a sign of being something like a State Alchemist, what kind of organisation would recruits kids our age? That's insane!"

"Well, maybe the younger ones are supervised until they're old enough or experienced enough," Al reasoned.

"Maybe," Ed acquiesced and sighed loudly. "We won't really know until we see more people and figure out what the trend is – trying to work this out from three people would never work."

Al's eyes drifted. "You know," he said slowly, "we haven't had a chance to properly look out the window."

Ed's eyebrows rose. "Too much stuff kept on happening. We've spent a lot of time asleep and when we were awake, there was always someone coming in and out to check up on us or we were talking about where we actually were."

Together, they crawled to the other side of the bed. Al felt strange having to crawl on three limbs instead of four and was glad they were on the bed closest to the window because, while they would have still been able to see outside from the other bed, it would have been harder to spot anyone wearing the headband from that distance; that is, if it could be called a headband since Ino apparently didn't wear hers on her head.

They're _huge!_ was Al's first thought. Maybe it was their perspective but the buildings looked like they could be four or five times the height of their own house in Resembool. The way the buildings were built together leant themselves far more to Dublith in crowdedness than Resembool but the actual structures of them were, again, similar in some aspects and different in others. Everywhere they looked on the buildings, there wasn't a single scrap of space that wasn't in use and they seemed so crowded with a dizzying variety of items. Each looked as though someone had decided to have multiple houses built one on top of the other with their roofs stuck out around the middle of the buildings usually at regular intervals. That said, Al could see that most of the buildings weren't uniform in the slightest; ranging from one story to several and sprawling wherever they fancied; neat it wasn't. The roof parts and actual main roof were made of planks of wood with pipes going across or up them. Thick black wires stood out against the buildings, running from pole to pole and several disappeared into houses through small gaps in the wall. Al could see clusters of leaves in the distance and poking above the buildings, so there were obviously 'green' areas in this city. Overhanging signs displayed over what looked to be shops had the same kind of symbols Hokage had used when drawing her map.

The streets weren't that packed but there were still a few people milling about. After twenty minutes of people watching they gave up. They hadn't seen anyone who was wearing that same headband in the crowd but they'd try again a bit later – they couldn't base their conclusions on the one sample after all.

* * *

Okay, hands up, who guessed the unwanted visiter?

(snerk) If you know my writing, you know how much I like using dramatic irony.

Sooo many semi-colons.

No-one ever looks up do they? And there's not that many ninja there at the moment so there's nothing to see. ;p

For once, I don't think I actually have that much more to say about this chapter. I know, shock horror. Though sorry for the lack of interaction with Kakashi.

Can you believe that I completed the first chapter of this pretty much a year ago exactly? I'd started to post this after completing four chapters.

The next update will be on the seventh of May. Again, I haven't completely finished the eigth chapter but I don't think it'll be that much of a problem. My exams coming up right after that will be. I _have _got most of the ninth chapter done as well so hopefully you won't have to wait for two months again since that chapter comes the week after my exams. But since when is that a surprise with my update schedule? (rolls eyes)


	8. Breath of Fresh Air

**Summary:** (Fullmetal Alchemist/ Naruto crossover) Ed and Al tried to resurrect their Mother but something went wrong. Not only did they fail, their bodies paying the price, but they are no longer in Amestris. They are in a world where all the natural rules aren't always obeyed...

Don't think I have much to say here (don't worry, I'm going to be making up for this _hugely_ in the post-chapter author's note). Though, could someone have told me that I had a double line in the last chapter? I didn't know that was there until yesterday morning.

Anyways, thanks to all the people who read, reviewed, faved, put this on story alert, and/or added this to their C2. And, obviously, thanks to my beta-reader Krows Scared.

* * *

**Fullmetal Ninja**

By Dark Ice Dragon

Breath of Fresh Air

* * *

Ed looked up when he heard the now familiar sound of the door sliding open. He glanced at the clock; their plates had been collected a little while ago and a nurse, not Hokage, probably wasn't due to check on them for at least another half-hour. A few seconds later, Naruto poked his head around the door warily.

Ed wasn't surprised at this since the doctor yesterday had thrown both Naruto and his brother out soon after Naruto's brother had landed on Al bringing the siblings' fight to an abrupt end; Al wasn't hurt, save for a few tender areas and bruises, nothing worse. Ed and Al didn't see them again for the rest of the day, even after the doctor had left. Ed had wondered about their absence but other more pressing issues soon pushed the thought to the back of his mind and since neither of the two boys appeared again, he didn't think about it.

Seeing no-one else in the room, Naruto came in with a grin. He started talking quickly; so quickly in fact that he didn't seem to be taking a breath. Walking towards Ed, he snagged the wheelchair, which stood forgotten in a corner from the previous day, and stopped when he reached the beds. Leaning on the handlebars, Naruto's grin somehow widened even further and he said one word as he pointed to the door.

Out. And by the way Naruto was grinning, Ed had a feeling that he hadn't been told to or he'd been specifically told to not take them out. Ed grinned back at him. Beside him, he heard a half-laugh, half-sigh. Turning to look at his brother, Ed saw Al softly shaking his head but Ed could also see the small smile on his lips. Straightening up, Al looked between the two in well-practiced exasperation.

Naruto was still waiting for an answer – but not patiently because he was no longer leaning on the handlebars and was instead, bouncing on the balls of his feet. He didn't seem to notice Al's look.

Without a word, Ed slid off the bed and into the wheelchair, Al following on foot after him. While he was glad that they were getting out again, Ed felt that he and Al were being used a little bit as revenge against the doctor. Leaving the room wasn't going to cause any harm apart from worrying the staff, and he and Al were getting bored with nothing to do apart from staring at the walls. They couldn't read any books, couldn't study, couldn't leave the room without supervision, or talk to people; it was beginning to drive them nuts.

They walked around for a while, Naruto helping to expand their vocabulary in the usual way and giving a tour of the hospital at the same time. The hospital was huge, with wide corridors and large windows overlooking more of the city. Not that he could see that much from his 'chair. There weren't as many people in the corridors this time around but that was hopefully a good thing, meaning patients didn't need the doctors as much. While they were moving, Ed still noticed the looks people around them were throwing their way; most were of the same mixture they'd received yesterday in the canteen, though not as concentrated.

Why did a lot of people here seem to hate or fear Naruto? There didn't seem to be a reason for it; Naruto was likeable enough – maybe they didn't like his swearing? But that didn't make sense because someone swearing shouldn't make people fear you. Ed huffed. He and Al were probably never going to work it out since Naruto knew about it and didn't want to talk about it or ignored it. Maybe he couldn't talk about it because he couldn't explain it in gestures and the handful of words that he and Al knew so that it made sense. Maybe. Hmm... He didn't seem bothered about it though.

Ed yelped and jumped in surprise when Naruto suddenly shouted, "Oi!" and then a word that he didn't recognise but seemed to have lots of e's in it. It was like he'd yelled right in his ear! Everyone turned to look at them and then almost instantly turned away when they saw who it was, all except one person. He had crutches wedged under his arms and stood waving at them awkwardly. The unknown word must have been his name then. Ed took in the other boy's appearance and nearly choked. He wore a very fitted, like a second skin almost, all in one suit in a somewhat garish bright green. How did he get into that? The material didn't look anything like what Ed had seen back home. As a belt, the boy was using the silver band like Ino had been; they couldn't keep calling them 'headbands' if they were being worn as belts as well. The cloth was red, unlike the others' blue; did the colour have a significance? The boy was also wearing some sort of really thick bright orange socks. Al elbowed him in the arm to stop him staring openly.

The other boy smiled at them. "Hello, Naruto." Naruto's grin came back full force.

Seeing his curious look to him and his brother, Naruto introduced them with a practiced wave of his hand. "Ed. Al. Geki-mayu."

Ed and Al waved; Geki-mayu bowed. They started to walk again, Naruto and Geki-mayu chattering away at speed, Naruto sometimes waving his hands exaggeratedly and Geki-mayu nodding. Ed wondered as they moved; Geki-mayu was obviously a patient here –he didn't have that much grace with the crutches for him to have been using them all that long- but he was wearing different clothes from what he and Al were, so that meant he'd at least been here just a little longer than they had or someone had brought him his clothes. What had happened to their clothes anyway? The deconstruction of their limbs –Ed hastily shoved the imagery away- shouldn't have affected their clothing. Apart from the amount of blood they would have inevitably lost after the deconstruction had finished, Ed thought with a grimace, they'd most likely had to be cut out of them and were in the trash, cut to ribbons. Which led to the question of how they had been found so quickly – the body could drain itself of blood in minutes under the right conditions, and in his and Al's case, they had both had more than just a small cut.

Doing this wasn't helping, he berated himself with a shake of his head. Asking questions was good, but only if there was at least some way to get the answers. At this point, all they could do was observe and ask extremely simple questions and get extremely simple answers back. They wouldn't be able to learn what they wanted until they got much better at this language. But they knew that already. Why did he keep on asking the same questions over and over again?

"What's wrong?" Al asked softly, his eyebrows drawn in worry. They seemed to be asking each other that a lot recently, Ed thought wryly.

Ed sighed and shifted about in his chair. It wasn't made to be slouched in easily he grumbled to himself in annoyance. He gave up and leaned an elbow on the armrest instead. "Nothing new – just the same old questions with some new ones."

"Ah."

Naruto slowed to a stop and after an awkward conversation with Geki-mayu, the other boy shook his head with a smile and hobbled to the large slide-doors on their left and opened one.

Wow. The buildings looked even larger when there was no glass in the way and closer up. The cool breeze that hit them when the doors were opened was also a relief after being in a stuffy room for so long. Ed leaned forward in the chair to see better as Naruto pushed him forward into the fresh air. It was a pretty large courtyard with an expanse of grass all around and for some reason a line of logs had been set up sticking half way out of the ground over in one corner. As a backdrop there were buildings like the ones he and Al had seen from their window towering over the far wall. Only these looked taller than in their room; it must have been because they were at a lower perspective now. Also, from this angle, Ed could see a lot clearer that they were right about the buildings not being made completely out of brick but the platforms that stuck out randomly of the buildings were made out of wood. Weird. Why had they been built like that? They looked a lot different from the regular cube-like structures that they were used to. Al made similar noises of wonder beside him.

The four of them wandered slowly over to the line of logs. Ed wondered at the logs poking up through the grass; each one was covered in dents, had bark missing, chips knocked out and/or several odd holes. The wall behind was similarly punctured. So, they'd been used as target practice? In a hospital? Weren't the doctors and nurses worried that their patients would hurt themselves in another way? Or were they for the staff? But if they were, patients wouldn't be able to access them as easily as they had.

Naruto pushed the wheelchair so that he was next to the log closest to the corner while Geki-mayu stood in front of one, two logs down. Geki-mayu then declared something to Naruto, a determined look in his eye before he started to punch the log over and over again.

Was he allowed to do that? Ed wondered. He guessed that he was, since the logs were there in the first place but was he supposed to do that if he still needed crutches? Depending on the injury, if he was still recovering, then doing that would make the injuries worse. Except in others, it would help the person to heal faster. Ed winced as a particularly loud 'crack' split the air. If he hit any harder, he was going to break the bones in his hand!

"No!" Al had realised the same thing. "No – um..." Yeah, they really needed to learn a lot more words than the handful they knew. Ed mimed punching the air in front of him. Al nodded in confirmation.

Naruto actually snickered while Geki-mayu smiled at them. The two of them pointed to the silver headbands, saying something. So they were right, it did hold some sort of status – but what? If Geki-mayu was training to keep physically fit even while recovering from an injury, then maybe it was some sort of military thing. Or... he just wanted to keep fit. Not everything they thought mildly weird was going to have an equally strange explanation, Ed reminded himself.

"Lee!" Geki-mayu's eyes lit up at the sound of the new voice. Was that his nickname? It was kinda interesting that it was more familiar sounding than the rest of what he and Al had heard during their stay here. Or maybe there was someone around here or a whole place that spoke a similar language to them? Geki-mayu said something back (Ed assumed it was the other person's name) before continuing at a fast pace, leaving Ed to wonder where the person's name ended and where the rest of the sentence started.

Ed turned to look at the newcomers and again found himself staring. Walking towards them was an exact copy of Geki-mayu (or was it the other way around?) together with two other people. As they neared, Ed was able to see that Geki-mayu's twin wasn't exactly the same; this new guy was taller and wearing a thick green sleeveless jacket. Bleh, Ed hoped he'd never end up looking that much like his father.

The two with him were a girl and a boy; both looked older than Ed and Al. The girl had dark hair scraped back into a couple of rather silly looking balls on top of her head and the silver band was on her forehead, but her hair covered what colour the cloth was. Her clothes weren't that different, though they were still a little exotic – and it was pink. The other boy... Ed sighed and scrubbed at his face. He looked like he had cataracts, but Ino had been able to see when she didn't have pupils and this guy was similar, if with even lighter eyes. Again, there was no white walking cane in his hand. He had also noticed Ed and Al's staring almost straight away.

"What?" he said, glaring.

Naruto was glancing between the two groups, a concentrated look on his face and then groaned. He said something that made the other group look at him in surprise before looking at Ed and Al in confusion, or anger in the non-blind boy's case. He demanded something but Naruto intervened with a phrase that Ed was quickly recognising as 'They don't speak our language'. He added something that maybe sounded like it had Ino's name in it and then the boy's anger lowered, and he nodded curtly, though his eyes still reflected annoyance.

So seeming blind but actually being able to see was normal here. It wasn't sex-linked either, though they really should have known that since it was a girl that they had seen it in first. Or maybe it'd been around a while, if this was the second generation or later.

Ed's head snapped to the right, eyes wide with disbelief. A little distance away, leaning on the wall next to the other group was an entirely jet-black humanoid. It was like seeing the invert of the being at that door. He heard a muffled gasp next to him, letting him know that Al had seen it too. Why weren't – why weren't they even moving?! Couldn't they see it? If they just turned their head a little bit, it'd be right in front of them!

'No,' Ed realised with shock, 'they couldn't see it.' All of them had seen his and Al's reaction and were looking curiously at the spot where the being was but they didn't so much as blink and then looked away.

As soon as Ed came to this realisation the being disappeared. He laughed, unable to help himself. They were stuck on another planet, unable to speak or read the local language, missing a limb each so they couldn't travel anywhere without help, and now they were being haunted by one of the things that had brought them here in the first place! Oh, this was just great. In between the hysteria and laughter, Ed registered Al leaning heavily on his wheelchair, taking in quick shallow breaths. As the laughter petered out into giggles, Ed straightened and hugged his brother.

Those beings were just doing it for kicks, or maybe just the one was. They'd seen them twice now and nothing good or bad had happened either time. Maybe it was only the white one that could send people to other places. Or something. He filed the idea away for further consideration when he was feeling a little less giddy.

Ed tensed when something came too close for comfort. It was Geki-mayu's father, half-squatting in front of them, frowning a little. He murmured something soothingly, holding up a hand. When Ed and Al relaxed, he slowly brushed some of Ed's hair away from his face and put his palm there, taking his temperature. A few seconds pause then he did the same with Al. He straightened up and asked Naruto something. A short conversation later and both were looking serious. Moments later Ed and Al were moving back towards the hospital building being pushed by Naruto and the others remained by the logs.

Well, at least they'd gotten some fresh air, Ed thought as they passed back through the doors.

* * *

Absolute 'love' of commas and semi-colons in this chapter. Erk.

I'm starting to think that I'm going just a _tiny _bit overboard with how much' Ed brings up the noticing how everyone looks at Naturo' thing. But if he can't work anything out, then he'd probably keep on going at it, says my beta-reader. This should be the last time it's brought up for a while.

Thanks to Lucathia Rykatu for correcting me on Lee's nickname - I thought that it was Geji mayu. Hopefully this'll be the extent of the Japanese appearing in this fic, apart from jutsu, when they appear. I'd originally had Naruto correcting himself but then thought that he wouldn't so there might a few 'Lee's floating about when they should be 'Geki-mayu'. Ugh, it just seems to slow the whole sentence for me though.

(rolls eyes) So many questions in this chapter.

_Do _they have lifts in the hospital?

'Sex-linked' is the actual term for a gene only expressing itself in males. It doesn't mean that a woman doesn't have that gene, but if she _does_ have that gene, then she'll be a carrier, and won't have the disease or whatever that a man would have if they (the man) had the gene. If the woman then has a child with someone who has the gene, there's a chance that their kid, male or female, could then have the disorder/disease. If the woman has the gene in _both_ of her chromosomes, then she'll have the disease (thanks to sadfulness, for pointing this out for me). I'd go into a lengthy tangent about it but you've seen how long this author's note is haven't you? Any questions about this, just ask.

Eh, my exams are going to be at the end of the month. Fun. On the other hand, I'm pretty confident for getting an all right mark in Language and Thinking. We had the writing topic, and seeing how experts differ from novices. This wasn't in terms in spelling etc. but more in their cognitive functions while writing. From that, I'd say I'm half-way between a novice and an expert - though I'm leaning more towards novice.

The next update will be on the fourth of June.

**Edit:** Or maybe not. / My beta reader still hasn't gotten back to me yet. Should I wait for her to get back to me, or should I post up the next chapter and then update with the beta version once she's sent it to me?


	9. Practicing

**Summary:** (Fullmetal Alchemist/ Naruto crossover) Ed and Al tried to resurrect their Mother but something went wrong. Not only did they fail, their bodies paying the price, but they are no longer in Amestris. They are in a world where all the natural rules aren't always obeyed...

Thanks to all the people who read, reviewed, faved, put this on story alert, and/or added this to their C2. And thanks to Krows Scared for beta-reading this. :)

* * *

**Fullmetal Ninja**

By Dark Ice Dragon

Practicing

* * *

Iruka took a deep breath, savouring for a moment the familiar scents of home. He then wrinkled his nose at just _how_ much he stank of blood and sweat. It had been a relatively short mission, only lasting a few days, but there had been a lot of skirmishes along the way. He'd declined staying the night, opting to leave straight away and return as soon as possible and with only himself to worry about, it was a rapid journey home.

Konoha seemed to sparkle in the darkness; the lights from homes and shops bathed the streets in a warm yellow glow. There were still quite a few people moving about, doing some last minute shopping or out socialising, but it was still generally quiet. Now all he had to do was report in. Then he could return home, shower and collapse on his nice warm bed: at least then he'd be coherent when the Hokage debriefed him in the morning.

xXx

"…And that's all that happened, Lady Hokage," Iruka said, finishing his report. He waited to see if she would make any comments or ask any questions. She shouldn't since it was a straight-forward mission with no complications.

She'd been playing with a pen as she listened to him, rolling it between her fingertips. There was a seconds silence after he'd finished before she put the pen down with a small sigh, and closed her eyes. "All right." The Hokage didn't say anything for another minute, just sitting there. Iruka was beginning to wonder if he had been dismissed when she spoke again.

"You'll receive your payment at the end of the week," she said distractedly. There was another small pause before she opened her eyes. "Are you rested enough to begin another mission?" she asked, studying him. She leaned back a little in her chair. "It's a C-rank mission," she added.

Iruka considered the question. He'd had a good night's rest sleeping in his own bed and he hadn't suffered from any serious injuries in the fights; a lot of scrapes, cuts and bruises but they had already been treated, bandaged up or salves put on them. It would largely depend on what the mission was but if it was a C-rank mission, he should easily be able to handle it. He nodded.

The Hokage mirrored him slowly. "Naruto called it babysitting," she said amused, her eyes focused in the distance.

Hearing this, Iruka's eyebrows rose. Naruto had taken this mission? So why had he stopped? He then wryly remembered the Fire Lord's wife's cat and how many genin had been sent after it alone. Also, it was probably a good thing that Naruto wasn't babysitting (or whatever it really was) considering his influence of Konohamaru… But the way she'd said it –and knowing Naruto- it wasn't exactly that.

"In truth, your mission is partially that," she admitted, "but there's something else I want you to do. The two boys don't know our language but they've been picking up phrases at a fast rate," she said, diving right in. "I've heard about your teaching skills; I want you to teach them our language while seeing if you can get them to teach you part of their own."

There were no records of this language? Iruka wondered. No-one knew it? He shook his head, forcing his mind back on track. It didn't matter that there was no information about the language; they would be learning about it now, which was what mattered.

Accepting the mission would mean that he would be staying in the village for an indeterminate amount of time. Even if the language was closely related to their own it could still take months to carry out. There was a level of befriending as well (so that they would teach him their language) which was probably why the Hokage was asking a school teacher for both reasons. But why him? He thought that the others in the school were better teachers. As well as that, depending on how things went, he could still do other missions as well. He made his decision. "I accept."

The Hokage quirked her lips at him. "Okay. As I've already said, they're fast learners; they've learned more than a handful of phrases and words from people willing to stay with them for more than five minutes." She snorted. "They're very eager and determined to learn our language; one of them, Ed, seems to be getting very frustrated at not being understood and having to use gestures to get his point across."

At this, Iruka chuckled, relaxing slightly. "It'll be a change from what I'm used to."

Her smile turned wry before she became serious again. "Now, there are a few things that you need to know about these two brothers. The first is…"

xXx

"Right," Ed mumbled as he scribbled on the paper in front of him. Littered on the bed around the two of them were pieces of paper, each with its own elaborate design drawn on it. Every single one was different from each other, ranging from the very simple to overly complex. Making the correction, Ed checked the Array over one last time. When he couldn't see any other mistakes he activated it.

A flash of light later, there was a miniature chair sitting in the centre of the Array.

Al grinned at him. While they hadn't tried every single Array they knew -which was impossible unless they started to draw on the walls, and some Arrays had very specific functions- they at least knew that they hadn't forgotten the basics of Alchemy and that they could still draw and activate Arrays. A good thing for Al because clapping with a hand and a foot wasn't convenient in any way.

Concentrating on making sure that the chair was exactly what he wanted it to be, Ed absently swiped at his foot when it started to itch. He froze in surprise when his hand went through it. _'What?'_ Looking down, Ed realised that the itchy foot had been his left. He stifled a groan.

"Great," he muttered. He hadn't felt any twinges from his left leg apart from when he had first woken up but if it was starting now… Ed didn't know if this was exceptionally early or normal – he'd never asked Granny about the exact details, but he knew that most people with amputated limbs and no prosthetic limbs got it. He just hoped it wouldn't develop into the type of agonising pain he'd sometimes heard it being described as. His eyes wandered to Al and he wondered if Al would be getting it soon too.

Al had seen Ed's movement. He didn't say anything at first, just looked at him in concern. "When do you think they'll start asking if we want a prosthetic or Automail?"

"Well…" Ed trailed off and frowned. They'd been here for how many days now? He counted them up - six days, he realised, and he'd seen the wound every time the nurse redressed the bandages; they'd had to cauterise the wound to make sure that they wouldn't bleed to death and it was healing quickly. Which was good and everything but the longer they waited, the more they healed, the _worse_ it would be when the Automail implants had to go in. Ed grimaced. They'd either have to reopen the wounds to be able to get to the still live nerve endings if the healing progressed too far or possibly cut of bits of flesh around the wound to the same effect.

They hadn't been asked what kind of prosthetic they wanted. They hadn't been measured (unless they'd done it while they were asleep. If they had, that was a little bit creepy) or had anyone bring in a prosthetic to measure against them. Didn't they have them in this wo – _city_, Ed hastily corrected himself before actually thinking the word. Did the people who'd lost their limbs go around with an empty sleeve, in a wheelchair or on crutches and that was it? It didn't fit. If a little village like Resembool could make Automail, how could such a large sprawling city not even know about the regular prosthetics?

"The way people have been acting," Ed said slowly, eyes drifting, "I don't think they know about Automail here." Which made sense because Automail was a technology from the other side of the world. It'd have been pretty weird if they had the exact same technology here.

The next medical person who visited them, they'd try and ask about it, Ed decided.

A few minutes later, there was a knock at the door. "Come in," Al called out a second before him, recalling the phrase faster than he did.

The person who walked in wasn't one of the medical staff. Ed wasn't sure but the jacket the man was wearing seemed familiar. A few seconds thought and he placed the colour and shape to the one Lee's father had been wearing.

He was also wearing a silver band like Naruto did, on his forehead. Under the jacket was a dark blue, long-sleeved baggy shirt with matching trousers. What struck them the most was a deep scar which ran across the bridge of his nose and dark hair pulled into a rather odd spiky bunch at the back.

Seeing them sitting on the bed, he smiled as he walked up to them. "Hello. My name is Iruka."

It was a good thing they'd somehow found a convoluted way of asking Naruto to name common phrases a few days ago because at least they knew some of the basics now.

xXx

Konohamaru peered around the corner but snapped back again when he heard someone coming towards him. He stayed there, hugging the wall, not moving a muscle, trying to keep his breathing quiet. The person passed him, not looking away from the clipboard in his hand. Breathing a sigh of relief, he peeked around the corner again. Boss was here somewhere, and he'd find him even if he had to wait all day! Until lunch anyway. A ninja had to keep his strength up after all.

He knew that there were two places Naruto would go in here but he'd already checked the dark-haired boy's room; the pink-haired girl was there as usual, but no Naruto. So that left one place. If he could just remember where it was...

He discreetly wandered the corridors, jumping into shadows, behind chairs and around corners every time he heard footsteps moving towards him. After about an hour, Konohamaru recognised his current hiding place (the laundry trolley) as the same place he had hidden in from Naruto a few days ago; it had the same stain in the shape of the Hokage hat on one wall. He peeked over the top, trying to see if the rest of the corridor was familiar. It wasn't but he jumped over the wall and sprinted to the next available hiding spot: a wilting potted plant about the same height as him. Konohamaru waited for a group of people to pass and then wondered if he should take the left or right corridor. He took another quick glance around to make sure that no-one was trying to sneak up on him. Seeing the coast was clear he closed his eyes and spun around once throwing his left arm out just before he stopped.

Decision made, he opened his eyes and groaned quietly at the momentary dizziness before staggering slightly down the left corridor.

A little while later he discovered he'd made the right choice when he found the door he was looking for. Cackling to himself, Konohamaru slid the door open as quietly as he could and was about to sneak in when he noticed who was actually in the room. _'Ackackack! Abort the mission! Abort the mission!'_ He turned around to run in the opposite direction.

"Konohamaru?"

Too late. He froze, mind working furiously. Maybe if he just...

"Konohamaru, what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be training?" Iruka had his arms crossed and looking disapprovingly at him. The other boys were looking on curiously.

"I am!" he protested. "I got here without anyone seeing me!" He hadn't been doing any kind of physical training but that was because everyone else was busy with something else, but Iruka didn't have to know that. He'd been getting really good at sneaking about with all the practice he'd been getting.

There was a small pause as Iruka sighed. "And where are Udon and Moegi?" Iruka asked, looking around for his two friends.

Konohamaru grumbled and looked away. "They're both at home doing chores." They were training to become ninja; why did they have to do chores? It always took them ages to finish too.

"Ah." Iruka was smiling at him in understanding. What had he said? "You were trying to find Naruto?"

Wha-? How'd he know? "Well, yeah."

Iruka suddenly perked up as he remembered something. He turned around to face the other boys. "This is Konohamaru" he said to them, speaking slower than normal. Iruka then gestured towards them.

"My name is Ed."

"My name is Al." They both looked at Iruka for confirmation, who smiled in encouragement.

It was said slowly and in an unfamiliar accent. "What're you doin'?" Konohamaru asked his teacher curiously. Why was he acting like he was teaching in a classroom? All the teachers were supposed to be on missions – not in hospitals doing their normal work.

Someone bumped into him from behind. "Huh?" Gah! When did Naruto sneak up behind him? "What're you – Iruka!" Naruto walked past, forgetting about him as soon as he saw his teacher. "When'd you get back?"

Iruka didn't seem surprised that Naruto had just appeared out of nowhere but he had probably sensed him coming or something. "Last night." He returned his attention back to Konohamaru and gestured to the boys behind him. "I'm teaching these two how to speak our language."

Konohamaru's eyebrows furrowed. Why didn't they know how to speak their language? Didn't someone teach them how to talk?

Naruto had his arms crossed, thinking about something. "I was gonna stay here for a bit," he admitted, "but if you're here, then I can go see Sasuke instead."

He was already out the door when Iruka called out after him. "Wait!"

Naruto's head poked back in. "What?"

"Do you want to go for ramen when I'm finished?"

Naruto brightened and punched the air. "All right!" With that, Naruto exited with both hands behind his head, grin on his face and muttering happily.

Belatedly Iruka remembered something. "Wait... I'm being paid at the _end _of the week." Iruka pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.  


* * *

Too many commas and semi-colons, most of which I'm sure I've used wrong. / Ugh.

Though I did like writing Konohamaru. :)

The next update will hopefully be on the second of July but I haven't written that much of the next chapter, and the people who've got me on Author Alert know that I've started another crossover (Storm Hawks/Kingdom Hearts II) so that'll slow me down a bit too.

Edit: I think the next chapter might be a little bit late again. (winces) Sorry. On the other hand, I think I've finally figured out why my e-mail keeps on eating Krows Scared's e-mails, so this should hopefully not happen again (unless I haven't actually written the fic).


	10. Beginner Lessons

**Summary:** (Fullmetal Alchemist/ Naruto crossover) Ed and Al tried to resurrect their Mother but something went wrong. Not only did they fail, their bodies paying the price, but they are no longer in Amestris. They are in a world where all the natural rules aren't always obeyed...

Sorry for the general lateness again.

Thanks to all the people who read, reviewed, faved, and put this on story alert. Un-betaed because my e-mail swallows e-mails. Thanks to Lucathia Rykatu for answering my questions about Japanese.

I'm trying something new here so... italics are for second language, and normal is for first language. Obviously, this is going to get a bit confusing if someone stresses a word.

* * *

**Fullmetal Ninja**

By Dark Ice Dragon

Beginners Lessons

* * *

Al watched as Iruka shuffled a mildly protesting Konohamaru out the room. Why had he done that? Konohamaru hadn't been disturbing them. When Iruka was done, he came back over and sat on the bed opposite them.

They were learning the language faster now that they actually had a teacher, even in the hour that he'd been there. It was going a little slower than what Ed wanted (and Iruka'd only gone over the basics, checking what they knew), but Al didn't mind – it was kinda fun teaching their language to someone and finally doing something other than revising what they knew about Arrays.

Iruka was looking at the papers around them in curiosity. He went closer to them and picked one up, turning it over. He spread his hand over the clean side, indicated all of it and said a word. _Paper._ Ed and Al repeated the word, trying to get used to it. After correcting their pronunciation, Iruka then waited for one of them to tell him what the word was in their language.

"Paper." They then spent a little time trying to correct Iruka's pronunciation. Al wasn't sure if it was because of the language or it was just Iruka, but he seemed to have a few problems with saying ls or rs.

When they'd finished, Iruka flipped the paper over to show the Array they'd drawn on it. He traced the outside line of it lightly with a finger and then looked at them. Circle? It couldn't be pen. Array? Drawing? Maybe he was asking for 'circumference'?

"Array." Ed then pointed to another one. "Array. Array. Array." Each time, his finger moved. He picked the closest one to him and spread his hand over it. "Array."

"Hmm..." Iruka was staring at the Arrays thoughtfully. Al wondered if they should activate it - Naruto's reaction to Alchemy had been shock (and a lot of yelling) but Hokage's had been curiosity. He shot Ed a look, who was frowning.

"There really isn't another way to explain it to him, apart from showing it to him," he said, looking back at him and shrugging. Ed motioned to Iruka for him to give him the piece of paper, which he did. Ed settled down a little bit and made sure that none of the other papers were touching the one in front of him. He looked up at Iruka carefully. "Array. _Alchemy_," he stressed. Ed activated the Array. A flash of light later, a small building was in the centre of the Array.

Iruka had tensed when it changed and taken a small hop back, but that was it. He then focused on the building, eyebrows drawn together as he concentrated.

It was just a simple building – it was two stories high with windows on each floor and a flat roof. It was about as tall as half the length of their hand. It resembled the houses back home, Al realised a little painfully. He hadn't realised the first time they'd activated it.

Iruka pointed to the building and said a word. Al perked up at this and then repeated the word. If he was saying what he thought he was, then they weren't limited to only asking about what was physically in front of them. Ed had obviously gotten the same idea, the way he was quickly scanning the papers for the next thing to be named.

"_Wait._" A soft laugh. They both looked up at Iruka. He gestured to the building. "_Paper?_"

The brothers nodded. He pointed to it again. "_Building?_"

"Building." Al thought it over and then added, "Equivalent Exchange."

Ed stopped looking through the Arrays and stared at him incredulously, eyes wide. "How do we explain _that_ to him?"

Al shrugged, a little sheepish. "I think that's what he was asking for." He'd wanted to teach Iruka as much of their language as much as possible and hadn't really thought about how to explain it.

Iruka repeated the words slowly before saying something to himself.

Sighing, Ed rubbed his forehead with a palm and muttered under his breath. He pointed to the building when he'd gotten Iruka's attention again. "_One._" Then to the paper. "_One. No..._" He floundered for a second before he brought his hands together and then spread them. "_No,_" he said firmly and shook his head. "_No big. No small._" Ed waved a hand over the building. "_Paper._" Tapped around the base. "_Paper._"

Iruka leaned over the foot of the bed to get a closer look. To make him point clearer, Ed poked near the base of the building. His finger went through it with only a bit of pressure. He then did the same further away on the paper. It folded around his finger without breaking. Ed then looked up at Iruka. "_One._" He deconstructed the building. "_One._"

"Hmm." Iruka scratched the back of his neck. He reached over and brushed a finger over a line. It sparked. Iruka's hand snapped back.

Al stared. He knew how to activate an Array? But... looking at his reaction, he didn't know that it would do that. Taking a look at the paper, Al could see part of the building was there but not all of it. Considering Iruka had pulled away as soon as it started, it wasn't surprising. So he knew how to activate an Array, but did he know what each part of an Array meant? Al didn't think so. Iruka hadn't known what an Array was, so he would have known what the Array did because Ed had shown him what the Array would make. Ed was still gaping at Iruka.

As a test, Al picked a random Array and put it in front of Iruka, spreading his hand over the outer line. When he pulled his hand away, Iruka was already warily bringing his hand forward. Light arched along the lines before dying. Al nodded; he was right. But where had he learned to channel his energy and will like that?

Iruka was frowning again and looking at the Array carefully. "Chakra?" he asked them.

They shrugged, not knowing what he was asking.

He gestured his body and then placed a hand over his heart. Al puzzled over this. If he meant just the body, then he wouldn't have indicated his heart as well. Even if they took the two separately, they didn't make sense because they'd been talking about Equivalent Exchange before. It didn't work contextually. Iruka could have been saying what Equivalent Exchange was in his language, but then why did he try to explain it in the way that he had? It didn't have any meaning to what they'd been talking about.

Iruka half-smiled at them and then shook his head. He said something to them but Al knew about two of the words and heard a few of the others in passing. He took a step away from the bed and did something strange with his hands. He got his index and middle fingers of both his hands, pointed them and then wrapped his last two fingers of his right hand around the bottom of the pointing fingers of the left hand.

"Henge." A 'pop' and smoke erupted from somewhere, masking him completely. When the smoke cleared, Al's thoughts froze.

Standing in front of them was an exact copy of Al, in the same clothes and even down the bandaged arm. But how...? This was a completely different level of 'magic' that they'd seen before. There were sometimes travellers who came through Resembool and they'd set up a magic show for everyone to watch. They normally had a set stage and Ed and Al knew that there weren't any mirrors or strings in the room. Or a trap door. And even then, they couldn't have a clone of him – that technology didn't exist!

There was another 'pop' and Iruka was back, staring worriedly at them. He bowed. "I'm very sorry."

"_What,_ um, _four?_" They hadn't been taught 'for' but it should still make sense.

Iruka looked at him strangely. Or not. "You fear," Iruka tried to explain, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Scared," Al corrected him. "You are scared." There were different ways to interpret that but he took the easiest one.

"Scared," he repeated. He shook his head. "Oi." Don't change the subject, his raised eyebrow said.

Ed was glaring a hole in the bed, arms tightly crossed. "How did he do that? What kind of trick did he use? But he'd done that spontaneously! The small-scale magic, yeah, but not something like that," he ranted to the bed. "Like magic actually exists. Pfft. People used to think lightning was the proof of a god's wrath." He snorted. "That was probably their version of Alchemy," he concluded.

Al turned back to Iruka and motioned him to come closer. "Henge?" He signalled for him to do it again.

"You okay?" for me to do this again? Al's mind completed.

"_Yes._"

"Henge." Al was standing in front of them again. Did that mean it only worked when the person was in front of them, or did it show the people that the person had met? Al's thoughts took another track: was he actually seeing what he thought he was seeing? Maybe it was a kind of hypnosis? He straightened up so he was standing on his knees and waved a hand slowly over the other Al's head. Empty air. He brought his hand down and started in surprise when his hand came in contact with the other Al's hair. The other Al looked up at him and smiled.

"No scared?" he said. Even his voice was the same!

"_Little,_" Al admitted. It had to be their version of Alchemy because... No, it could still be hypnosis. To them, it could seem like the switch had happened in a second, but a minute had actually passed in real life. It would explain why they hadn't heard any running feet. 'Henge' could be the trigger word. Al suddenly saw the flaw in his thoughts. To hypnotise someone, you normally had to talk to them; he and Ed didn't understand enough of the language to be hypnotised. So that was out. "Iruka?" Al asked the other Al carefully.

"Yes?"

He had changed himself physically? And changed his clothes at the same time? As far as he knew, Alchemy could only change one thing at a time. Ed had the same idea because he was checking Iruka's (this was going to get confusing) shirt. If Iruka had made himself smaller, he'd have to be heavier with the condensed mass to compensate, which didn't really matter at the moment, just an idea about what must have happened. Al didn't understand how he could transmute more than one thing simultaneously though.

But if this really was their version of Alchemy, this was amazing! Iruka didn't have to draw Arrays so that would cut down on time; it was like their clapping. Did the way he put his hands change depending on what he wanted to do and would he say something different? Or was it exactly like their clapping and he had to know exactly what he wanted to change? Maybe their Alchemy was limited to their own body? Al's thoughts jumped to the conclusion: Iruka was an Alchemist.

"Ow!" Iruka was rubbing at his scalp; Ed had a few blond strands in his hand and was inspecting them closely.

"Ed!" Al chastised him. "_I'm very sorry,_" he apologised to Iruka.

Ed huffed. "I was just checking to see if they were the same." Al waited. He sighed. "Fine. _I'm sorry,_" he said to Iruka, who waved it off.

Iruka changed back (Al noticed he didn't use any hand movements or trigger words to do it. He only needed to do it one way?) and went to the corner of the room. He brought over the wheelchair. "We walk. Out?" He pointed out the window.

As in, they were letting them leave the grounds completely? Al wondered if he was allowed to do it, since he was close to Naruto, he was causing trouble for the doctors again. He seemed genuine though. But they'd actually be able to see what else was in Konoha and just be able to see things closer up. Not to mention getting out of the room and the confining walls of the hospital. Ed was already in the wheelchair and grinning from ear to ear. There really wasn't a need to ask them, Al thought as he slipped off the bed to follow them out the door.  


* * *

Eek. Sorry about the short chapter.

(stab) Translation problems are doing my head in. D: (groooan) That conversation at the start was _so_ interesting. (snerk) Yeah, I know it's not really a good way to teach peopla a new language, but Iruka's going for common words that'll maybe help them get understood better. Iruka's actually trying to say 'I scared you' but because of the different word order, Al mistranslates it.

In my head, for FMA, to activate an array you need to be able to use your will to make the change, as well as knowing _exactly_ what you want the array to become for it to happen.

I'd originally planned Naruto taking the Elrics out - might try to do it in the future.

Okay, I need a little bit of help with the next chapter. I'm just wondering if you know of any cheap (emphasis on this) sweets/snacks that Iruka could buy for the Elrics. It'd also be helpful if you could tell me what the texture's like when you're eating it (if you know) but it's not completely needed (I'm just one of those people who wants to know everything, _just in case_ I need to use it). You don't have to tell me in a review - you can send it in a PM or to my e-mail. :) Thanks.

The next update will... um, not sure, actually. Sorry. I'm taking a break from this for a while so I can properly plan out what's going to happen in this fic and have my chapters written out beforehand instead of rushing them out. That really doesn't help with my writing, it really shows that I'm not writing at my best and it's making me get a block on this. If I can get my plan back in order and get a few chapters ahead_ (and_ beta-read) I might actually be able to write faster than once a month for this fic. I don't know when I'll start posting this fic again since it seems the deadline I put on myself was, in some cases, making things worse for my updating. Sorry for doing this to you.

New edit: I've actually got a few snippets up on my writing livejournal now, if you want to read those. The link's in my profile.


	11. Looking Up

**Summary:** (Fullmetal Alchemist/ Naruto crossover) Ed and Al tried to resurrect their Mother but something went wrong. Not only did they fail, their bodies paying the price, but they are no longer in Amestris. They are in a world where all the natural rules aren't always obeyed...

Sorry for the huuuuge lateness. Uni life ate me and that's all I'm going to say about my excuses for lateness.

Thanks to ehxhfdl14 for beta-reading and all the information about dango, Lucathia Rykatu for the Japanese help and sandrilenefatoren2 and Night's Bullet for helping with the cheap snacks question. :D And, of course, thanks to all you who've reviewed, faved, added to alerts this fic and waited this long for me to update.

* * *

**Fullmetal Ninja**

By Dark Ice Dragon

Looking Up

* * *

Ed sighed as the front doors of the hospital opened and a small rush of air blew in, already refreshing him as it cooled him down just slightly. The breeze blew away the stuffy air he'd gotten used to inside the hospital and brought with it a dusty smell that also carried the freshness of the trees around them. It was a little cloudy, Ed thought, looking up, but at least then-

The fuck?

He gaped as he watched _people_ (not just one, two or even three; _much_ more than that) jumped from roof to roof as if the laws of gravity didn't apply to them. No-one should be able to jump _that_ far normally – muscle enhancing drugs could only get you so far and these people were jumping twice as high and twice as far than should be even possible.

Ed stared at the legs of the closest people (they were hopping from the single storey building in front of them to the multiple storey building a little way away) – he could see tanned flesh under the short trousers, not the glint of Automail. But then – how were they – how did - ? He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, exhaled slowly and then opened his eyes again.

Nope, there were still people (different people this time; the others were already too far away to see properly) jumping about like they had springs for legs, even though he could see that their legs were normal.

So what did _that_ mean? Did it mean that the diet here helped the people in developing stronger muscles? That couldn't be right, because they'd been eating the same stuff (assumedly, you couldn't know with hospital food, or so he'd heard) as they had. Maybe they'd just _painted_ the limbs. Again, that was doubtful since the limbs still wouldn't look like a normal human's. But they were on the other side of the world so their technology here would obviously be different, and what kind of paint job must it have been if the Automail looked almost like real legs, rather than just looking like metal with paint slapped on? Except… he and Al hadn't been asked about getting prosthetics yet. Not to mention, what kind of mass accident would there have had to been if at least ten people had all lost their legs? That couldn't have been the only injuries. It just didn't make sense.

Which was becoming too much of a norm, he thought bitterly, glaring at the people as they became smaller and smaller. Their Alchemy was different from theirs (not a surprise) but was it possible to actually strengthen their leg muscles that much with it? Their leg muscles should be huge if they were enhanced like that, but they weren't and they were in proportion to the rest of their body. Ed felt like beating his head against the back of the wheelchair.

More questions. No answers. They weren't going to get any answers for a long time. _'Hasn't _anyone _gone travelling at some point in their lives and came back again?'_ he thought with frustration. There had to be at least _one_ person in the entire city who could talk to them.

But finding that person... Ugh. The fastest way to speak to the people here would be to just learn the language and not wait and hope that someone knew their language and then they'd just happen to cross each other's paths. Like it would ever be that easy.

Somehow, he put the jumping people to the back of his mind (not as hard to do as he thought, because most of them had disappeared off somewhere and so all he had to do was keeping his eyes at ground level). The next thing he focused on was the lettering (he should probably just call them characters) on the billboards. No matter how much he stared at them, he couldn't get any sort of meaning from them, or how they were even supposed to _pronounce_ the... word?, which was what was bugging him the most. Maybe each line meant a different sound? Ed shook his head. Yeah, right. If they could at least possibly read the language, that would have made learning (and looking for words they didn't know and asking for a description) so much easier.

Whatever. Something else to puzzle over. _Later,_ he thought stubbornly. There wasn't much point in thinking about it if they didn't have a way of getting the answer, not until they learned the language. Which, he was sure, he'd said that before. Maybe he should just find a way to stop thinking. He turned his thoughts away from the old frustrations. _'There's so many people here!'_ Ed mused, staring at all the people around them. It wasn't crowded so much that people had trouble moving around, but was populated enough that they still had to keep an eye on where they were going. The last time he and Al had looked out the window, it'd been pretty late in the afternoon so it was kinda weird how it was so packed now. Was today the weekend? Maybe. Ed didn't bother following that thought in trying to figure it out because even if he'd try to analyse it, it'd get him nowhere and just leave him annoyed again.

"_What's wrong?_" Iruka had stopped a little distance from the hospital doors, off to the side so that people weren't bumping into them. Ed realised with a wince he was going to have to get used to feeling most of the dips, bumps and rocks on the ground when he was in the wheelchair outside. He'd ignored the sensation when he'd been distracted but even though they had stopped, there was still a little buzzing in his body as an after-effect.

"_Questions,_" Ed replied, sighing. "_Big_..." No, that wouldn't work. "_One plus one plus one plus one questions._"

Iruka said something which Ed assumed meant either 'a lot' or 'many'. He repeated it, trying to commit it to memory. He made a note to himself to start making a list of all the words and phrases they knew – they were doing okay at the moment, but soon they would be told too many words to keep track of and remember easily.

When he checked on Al to see how he was finding the things around them, his brother was still watching the people who were up on the roofs. Ed remembered a conversation they'd had a few years ago about some stories they'd read.

"They don't have wings," Ed pointed out, looking at them, squinting, just to make sure.

Al gave him a look that said he wanted to stick his tongue out at him, like he'd done last time. "They're still kinda flying," he argued back.

"Their feet are touching the ground." Roofs. Whatever. "That's not flying." He was grinning. It'd been a while since he'd teased his brother. Especially since they'd found themselves _here_.

Al swatted his head. "It's probably as close to it as we'll ever get," he said wistfully.

A pointed cough. They looked up at Iruka sheepishly. "You okay?" he asked them.

They glanced at each other and then nodded at Iruka. Had they looked like they were arguing? "_Yeah._" There wasn't much they could do about their questions at the moment, so, as much as he hated to, they had to leave it for now. Just enjoy their time outside right now.

They started moving again after Iruka had made sure they were feeling all right (or whatever he was checking. He hadn't said.)

xXx

Some of the shops were (not surprisingly) completely different from what Ed and Al were used to; some others looked exactly like the shops back home. There were also a lot of places that looked like bars with a counter and stools but they were pretty much outside. Not that, he supposed, he could blame them. Why have a bar that was inside and stuffy when you could have it outside (but sheltered, obviously, for rain) and be cooler because of the breeze?

When there actually _was_ one at least. But he didn't know if the weather was normal today. No-one seemed that bothered by it but for Ed and Al; the temperature was about to border on Dublith heat. Ed repeatedly pulled at his collar and let go, trying to create some artificial breeze from _somewhere_.

Iruka was in a food shop at the moment, leaving them outside since the wheelchair didn't fit in through the door by a small margin. In the window was a variety of stuff, none of which they'd been given at the hospital. There were square packets of _something_, lining one of the shelves in a variety of different colours. They showed a pile of circles on the front, but what the heck they were, Ed didn't have a clue. Right behind the window, there were plates with food on them. One held a see-through packet that looked like it had multicoloured spiky balls inside it. Another had a box lying on top of it, the background of it red, the characters on it white, and there were some brown and yellow sticks behind the lettering. Furthest away were small square dark blocks of chocolate encased in the clear material again (just what _was_ it, and how had it been made?), the edges of it festive yellow and green.

The sound of a door clicking shut brought his attention back to the actual shop. It was _finally_ Iruka after two false alarms. In his hand, he was holding two sticks that skewered three spheres each; the spheres looked like smaller versions of toffee apples. "Mitarashi dango." He gave one to each of them, smiling, and put his index finger to his lips. "Shhh."

_Don't tell anyone I gave this to you._ Ed grinned back in return before turning his attention back to the... confection. Ed sniffed it, wondering. It smelled like it was sweet. Yeesh. _Very_ sweet. Maybe it was going to be exactly like a toffee apple, just without the apple. He didn't know what the syrup was covering; it was white but other than that... He took a bite and half choked. Ow. He'd bitten into it expecting the inside to be at least a bit solid, but his teeth passed through it with almost no resistance. The next sensation that hit him was the overpowering taste of the syrup. The white stuff itself though, whatever it was, was chewy and really not that bad. Ed didn't think the mitarashi dango was going to last too long, and looking at his brother, he doubted Al's was going to last either.

They were moving again after the first bite. There were more people milling about now but they all got out of the way of the wheelchair. A few times, Ed would see a flash of silver from those bands on several different people – there didn't seem to be a set place for them, when he could actually see it on a person: most were on the forehead, while others were around arms, necks or used as belts.

Ed fanned himself with a hand, grumbling. He was _sure_ it was getting warmer and warmer by the second. They neared another of the outside bars, and Ed's mouth watered as the smell of the mitarashi dango hit him again. You could eat it hot? His mitarashi dango was already finished and he could have easily had another. They passed by the bar, both of them looking mournfully at it. They turned around a corner and... wow. How had they missed seeing _that? That_ was a side of a cliff that had four faces carved into it. On the far right, there were wooden constructions twining up beside the fourth face. It was nowhere near the top of the cliff; it was more about the lower nose levels on the faces. Still, he could see (if he squinted) people moving planks and other things to make it steadily taller.

He sighed. At least this looked relatively normal compared to the Alchemy they'd seen here. But why would they decide to do that in the first place? Who _were_ these people?

More. Questions. Stop it.

They went down an alley into another street, and Iruka stopped in the shade of one of the insanely tall trees. Pretty much all the trees in this city were huge, some even easily towering over the multi-storey buildings. The diameter of the trunk, he didn't even want to think about it.

'_Just how old _are _these trees?_' he wondered, putting a hand on the trunk. It was a little quieter here with less people about, and the people present were either by themselves or in pairs, in contrast to the groups of four or five people in the other street.

They could still see the cliffside clearly from where they were, not that it was difficult to _not_ see it, and the streets were parallel to each other anyway.

"Hokage," Iruka said to them, pointing to the cliff. Ed frowned. Hokage? But wasn't that... Was that their name? All of them? Naruto had told them that their names were switched around here so... Was it just an extremely weird coincidence that all five of them had Hokage for their first name?

...Or it was a misunderstanding when they were talking with Naruto or Hokage? People didn't carve gigantic faces on a cliffside for no reason. Ed searched for the words he wanted to use. "_Hokage Tsunade... Doctor?_"

Iruka looked down at him, head tilted. "_Yeees. Hokage and do._" And with the way that the language went... She was doing the job of a doctor, and also Hokage. The way the question had been answered, it seemed like Hokage was actually a position or a title, not a name. Iruka pointed to where the construction was. "Godaime." Held up a hand, fingers splayed wide. "Five." Five Hokages altogether? Or the fifth Hokage in line? The second option made more sense.

Iruka walked around the wheelchair, crouching in front of them so that he could look at them both easily. That felt better; he wasn't straining his neck to look up anymore. "High Hokage," Iruka said, holding his palm flat now, and raising it. "Hmm... Genin, Naruto." Iruka's hand was just above the armrest. He raised it about an inch. "Chuunin, Iruka." His hand went up another inch. "Jounin. Anbu. Hokage." After every word, he raised his hand further. Iruka kept his hand there for a few seconds before dropping it. "Understand?"

Ed nodded. "Yeah." It was a lot like how the ranking went in the military. Alchemists were automatically majors once they passed the test, but what were these ranks for? Hokage was at the very top, which, if these people followed the same system, either meant general or Führer. But it _couldn't_ be just a general, because you didn't immortalise their faces as a giant rock carving (but this_ was_ another culture, so who knew?).

But if that was true, why would the _Führer_ come and see them? She had the rest of the country to look after – what was so important about two kids that she had to see them personally? She was a doctor, fine, but there wasn't _that_ big a shortage of medical personnel, was there? The doctors and nurses who'd come after her were usually the same most of the time, but when they'd left their room, they'd seen a lot of other staff about as well.

Well, okay, maybe it was because they'd found themselves across the world from home but how would they have known that? Ed shook his head a second later, feeling annoyed at himself. How had he and Al figured out that they were on the other side of the world? Nobody around them spoke the same language as them. They also knew it because the map Tsunade (he guessed he should probably start calling her that again) had drawn was different from the map they knew. So they would have come to the same conclusions as they had.

Iruka pointed to the furthest face on the left. "Shodaime." Moved his finger a bit to the right. "Nidaime." Again. "Sandaime. Yondaime." _Ah._ First, second, third, fourth. So 'daime' worked like their '-th'. Kind of. Not really. Actually, Ed thought a little enviously, _their_ way was easier since they mostly seemed to use the same word for each number – different from mutating it like 'first'. Then again, he didn't know how the rest of the ranking went so maybe it got complicated later.

"First," Al said next to him, translating and holding his index finger up. His middle finger then went up. "Second. Third. Fourth."

They stayed in that area for quite a while, Iruka telling them the names of most of the things around them and vice versa. The longer they were there, the more people they could see moving about and _finally_ the heat started to ease off. When Al's stomach rumbled, Iruka chuckled and pointed in the direction of the hospital. "Dinner?" he asked them.

Ed made a face but nodded. "_Hospital food._ Ugh." He hoped _that_ nurse wasn't serving the food again – she had noticed that he wasn't drinking the milk with their food and she'd stare pointedly at the still-full cup and back at him when she collected their plates after they'd finished. You didn't need to know the language to know what she was saying. He had a feeling she would either start standing there while they were eating and try to guilt-trip him into drinking the stuff or attempt to make him drink it through force pretty soon.

Iruka chuckled again. "_Sorry,_" he apologised as he took the brake off and turned Ed around. Ed ignored him – it wasn't his fault that the food there sucked.

They hadn't done _that_ much today, but as they slowly made their way back both Ed and Al were yawning widely, no matter how much they tried to stop it. This time, they didn't go back by exactly the same streets they'd gone down before; instead, they were going through more of the back alleys. There were still shops around them, but not as many, and it looked like houses were dotted in between them.

The hospital was cooler when they re-entered it– that might have been because the front door had been propped open with a chair to let a slight draft in. It didn't take them long to get back to their room and settled into their beds. After making sure that they were okay and didn't need anything, Iruka said to them, "See you... tomorrow," frowning slightly as he said the world slowly.

Ed perked up at that. So he wasn't just dropping in for one day then; he'd actually be teaching them. They waved at him as Iruka left the room. "_Bye._" Glancing around showed that the papers they'd left strewn all over the bed had been put into one tidy pile on one of the side tables, while their bed had been remade. Ed shuffled across the bed and started flipping through the papers. He eventually stopped at a sheet that had only been used on one side (the Array on the other side made a lioness standing on three legs).

"What're you doin'?" Al asked curiously as he made his way closer to him.

Ed scribbled 'Known Words/Phrases' at the top of the blank page and underlined it. Then he took a couple more pieces of paper to try and stop his pen from ripping right through the paper as he wrote. It kinda helped, but his handwriting was still shaky since the paper still bent anyway.

"Oh, cool!" Al said from his shoulder. "What should we start with?"

He shrugged. "Numbers... The phrases that everyone uses everyday..." He trailed off and he winced. "The word order?"

Al smiled faintly. "We know it's the other way around for them." Which was better than nothing. The other language didn't always change the word order though and they didn't know enough to ask about it and it was just _far_ too confusing.

"Don't know how things make sense to them when they're talking," Ed muttered as he wrote 'Itchy'. The second 'e' in 'Knee' went wonky as Al elbowed him.

"They could be thinking the same about us too, you know," Al reminded him, looking at him pointedly.

Ed paused as he thought it over. But _their_ way of speaking... This was making his head hurt. Alchemy was one thing; languages were something else entirely. "Fine," he said quietly, resigning to the logic. "Anyway, you gonna help with this or not?"

Al rolled his eyes but said, "Shouldn't you put the translation next to the word?"

He blinked and then looked down. "I was _going_ to!"  


* * *

Pretty long chapter for me. I'm also pleased with it - which obviously means there's some gaping plothole in here somewhere. :P

I know that it's 'ichi' and 'ni' for one and two, but Ed and Al don't, so they're going with the phonetic spelling.

The next update will hopefully be on the... *checks* eighteenth of April. I'm not quite sure though. Sorry for/if I'm being late again.


	12. Normal Day

**Summary:** (Fullmetal Alchemist/ Naruto crossover) Ed and Al tried to resurrect their Mother but something went wrong. Not only did they fail, their bodies paying the price, but they are no longer in Amestris. They are in a world where all the natural rules aren't always obeyed...

Thanks to ehxhfdl14 for beta-reading.

* * *

**Fullmetal Ninja**

By Dark Ice Dragon

Normal Day

* * *

Ed froze when he saw something black moving out of the corner of his eyes. The only other person in the room was Al, and he was sitting on his right; the movement had come from his left. He turned his head and narrowed his eyes at the familiar figure. Dammit, why was it back? Just to ask _another_ set of stupid questions? He didn't know if the being had been standing there for a long time – half of their attention had been on breakfast while the other half had been on writing words and rules they had missed from their list. It turned out to be a lot of work even after working on it for a couple of days; there was always something else they're forgotten, or something new they'd just been taught. They were starting to develop a system though - what word or phrase went where in a sentence on one page, and the rules on a different set of pages, even if it did mean that they were using a lot more paper. Even with the distractions, they had their backs to where the being was anyway.

Like last time, it was leaning on the wall with its arms possibly crossed. "Have you figured it out yet?"

Ed snatched up the closest thing to hand –his milk-filled cup- and threw it after pausing briefly to aim. "Go. _Away_!"

Predictably, it disappeared before the cup hit. So, instead of hitting its intended target, the cup smashed against the wall and splattered milk all over the place.

"...Shit."

'_Great. How am I supposed to give a reason for doing that?_' Ed grumbled. He glared at the spot as the milk slowly dribbled down, leaving wet trails on the wall. '_Stupid – Why didn't it stay and let the cup hit it? It would have nailed it in the head!_' Except the cup would still have ended up broken, only not in so many pieces.

Beside him, Al was also frowning at the wet mark. "We haven't actually seen it leave any evidence that it was really here," he said quietly. "It hasn't moved anything or touched anything. It didn't even leave a footprint." Glancing down, Ed couldn't see anything - but it wasn't like there was anything there to leave a footprint on. The rooms were swept daily and the floors were concrete and bare, so unless you were really trying, you wouldn't mark your presence by standing on it.

Ed thought back to the last time he'd seen it. He'd been distracted by it just _being_ there to look closely at what it was standing on or if it had changed anything. "What, you think it's a ghost?" he asked incredulously, staring.

Al shrugged, still looking at the wall. "We know it can't be our imagination because we saw it at the same time in the same place, right?"

They'd talked about it for ages after seeing it outside, making sure of what the other person had seen, if it was exactly the same and what that could mean, especially since no-one else seemed to see it. Ed rolled his eyes –it wasn't a very scientific conclusion- and Al reached over to smack him.

Just as Ed was about to defend himself, the door slid open and a nurse walked in to check if they were all right. Unfortunately, it was the nurse who knew about Ed's non-drinking habit, and she eyed the milk-spattered wall suspiciously. "_What happened?_" she asked him, a single eyebrow raised.

"Uh..." She was going to think he threw the cup because it had milk in it, he just _knew_ it. He'd never been _that_ extreme about milk, though being given it every time she was working was really getting on his nerves. Just because it was there, that did _not_ mean he was going to drink it, no matter how often she gave him it. Not that it'd been wholly coincidental that it was what he had used. Kind of. It really _had_ been the closest throwable thing he could reach. He glanced at the wet patch again. "_I no like,_" he muttered. Like he'd say that he was throwing it at a _ghost_ (or whatever it was) – and he didn't have the words to say it anyway.

The nurse gave him a disapproving stare and then sighed. "_No more milk for you_." She also said something else afterwards, but Ed wasn't sure what it was before she left with their empty trays. Eh, it wasn't as if he'd wanted the milk anyway. It'd stop her from bugging him about drinking that stuff and maybe she'd be happier when he ate everything now.

Ed and Al waited with eyes glued to where the being had been, to see if it would come back again. Just as Ed was about to turn away, it reappeared. Just... in the space of a blink it was there with no warning, in nearly exactly the same position as before. It probably did that on purpose. Ed started but didn't do anything, though he checked on the closest thing to he could throw: two pens, a few pieces of paper and the pillow. Great. Everything else was either too heavy, attached to the wall, out of reach, or his brother. "What the hell do you want from us?" he snarled.

Al's hand on his elbow stopped him from continuing. "Brother..." Al warned him quietly, a little pale.

Right. For all they knew, it could send them to another world again. _Separately_. Still, it seemed like it _wanted_ to piss them off and scare them so – he was doing exactly what it wanted. Dammit. Ed glared at it.

The being hadn't moved at Ed's shout or seemed to react to his glare (not that you could tell with its featureless face). It tilted its head slightly and Ed could _feel_ its eyes/attention on him. "Have you figured it out yet?" it repeated.

Ed rolled his eyes. "You already asked that." Maybe it was broken; it definitely sounded like it. "I'll throw something else if you don't have anything else to say." But there wasn't that much heat behind it though; he was getting tired of it popping up and annoying them every couple of days. Hopefully 'something else' wouldn't make too much noise when it hit.

It shrugged, arms bent at the elbows. "It won't hit me." Was it because it wasn't physically there or because it could disappear before anything got near it? ...And then they'd get into more trouble, ugh.

At that moment, the nurse came back with a cloth and a water-filled basin in her hands, as well as a small bag to collect what remained of the cup; as the nurse walked by, the being moved away. Huh. So it _could_ be touched then? Or was it just messing with their heads again? When the nurse finished, she looked at Ed in a way that said 'Don't do that again', and then she left the room.

It was sitting on the other bed now, swinging its legs over the edge. Ed and Al turned to face it, waiting to see if it would say anything new. Probably not. It tilted its head to its side. "If you haven't figured it out yet, I can tell you." Its voice got more childlike with each word - not just sounding higher, but just... younger, a whine getting added to the words, like a child trying to get what it wanted. It hadn't said exactly the same thing as before, but it was close enough. "For a price." '_And that, that was just fuckin' freaky,_' Ed thought as he tried to suppress the shiver running down his spine. Just for those three words, its voice had gone back to its original tone, but the echoing had gotten stronger, almost like there had been two people saying the same thing simultaneously.

Equivalent exchange. What could they give it in return? Information? The only thing Ed could think of that they could exchange was the fact that the being was dead. Or was that what they were supposed to figure out? If that was what it wanted them to realise then... "No thanks."

The swinging legs slowed down, but didn't stop. Its head straightened. "You sure?"

Al nodded next to him as Ed glared at it again. "Yes, we're sure."

The being shrugged. "All right," it drawled. A beat, and then it disappeared. Ed and Al waited to see if it would pop back up again, but after a minute, it hadn't and they glanced at each other.

"It's just trying to scare us," Ed scoffed, turning away. Al kept on looking at the spot thoughtfully for a few more seconds before he turned around too. They dived back into fixing and updating their lists for a while, not going anywhere near the topic about what had just happened.

xXx

"Ugh," Ed grunted, shaking his head.

Al glanced at his brother half-curious, half-worried, his pen hovering over a page. "What's wrong?"

"That being, _the_ being, it," Ed muttered, not hearing him. His brother put his chin on top of his fisted hand and blew the hair away from his face. He stared at the piece of paper in front of him, not seeming to see it.

"Brother?" Al put the pen down and waited for Ed to talk about what was annoying him. Past experience had taught him that when Ed got like this, he would leave it in a couple of moments or figure the problem out. Explosively. With massive flailing and yelling; it tended to result in spilled inkpots, spoiled notes and a scrabbling for pen and paper either way. At least here, they wouldn't have the problem with the ink. As a precaution, Al found one of the last blank papers, just in case Ed had an epiphany.

Ed threw his hands in the air in frustration. "Argh! Stupid idea," he grumbled, slumping while shaking his head.

Which probably wasn't true. Knowing his brother, he'd probably had a good idea, but then dismissed it because of a small thing. "What were you trying to do?" he asked.

"Huh?" Ed looking at him in mild confusion before waving a hand. "Oh, I was trying to think of a name for 'that being' – it's pretty stupid just calling it that, isn't it?"

Al remembered the last couple of attempts Ed had tried to name something, and smothered a laugh. Ed shot him a dirty look. "What did you come up with?" Al asked, once he'd pulled his hand away.

Ed squirmed slightly and looked away. He said something but Al barely heard him. It was short, but that was all he got from it.

"Ed." He drew the name out and watched as his brother crossed his arms and huffed.

"Ghost," Ed said finally after a couple of seconds and then glared at him. "It was the only thing I could think of!" he protested, before Al had even opened his mouth.

Al smiled, both at the name and at Ed's pre-emptive defence. Any stronger reaction to Ed's idea would have resulted in Ed storming off – or would have if he could, Al remembered with worry, eyes sliding to Ed's stump; they had realised that the doctors _were_ waiting for them to finish healing. When they were outside the room, they'd seen a couple of people with normal prosthetics, not Automail; they were also in crutches, which was slightly worrying. Not surprising, but they really _had_ to get back home soon.

"Well, he _is_ like a ghost," Al agreed placatingly, holding his hands up, "since no-one else can see it and its voice echoes." But it felt unreasonable to conclude that the being was a ghost just based on those two characteristics. There wasn't even scientific evidence that proved the existence of ghosts at all in the first place. But then, what _were_ the things beyond that door? He scratched his head. "The only name _I_ can think of is Shadow," he admitted. They were scientists – that meant if they discovered something, it was named by its physical characteristics or by the family it was from. Imagination didn't play that big part of it. Not really.

Ed snorted. "Better than what I came up with," he said. Knowing his brother, the other names he would have come up with he wouldn't have agreed to in any way. Ed nodded decisively. "Shadow it is then." Not that they'd asked him if he wanted to be named by them or what his real name was, Al realised guiltily.

"How do you think Shadow," –Ed smirked as he said it- "wanted us to pay?" Ed asked, changing the topic slightly.

Al shrugged, mulling it over in his mind, eyes wandering. "We don't know what he was offering us though," he pointed out. "If we don't know that, we don't have a scale to use."

"Hmm," Ed agreed, tapping his pen on a paper. "It's not like we have _that_ much we could give in exchange," he grumbled. Not in terms of money, no. But there were other ways to pay. The way that... Shadow (Al wasn't sure if the name fit, and it was probably going to take a while for him to get used to using the name) had said it, it sounded like they would have to give a lot in the exchange. And that he would enjoy getting what they gave back.

He frowned worriedly. "What could he tell us that could cost so much?" he mused out loud.

It was Ed's turn to shrug this time, dismissively. "Dunno. How to make the Philosopher's Stone? That's if it _had_ anything to tell us – it's probably lying. I think it's got nothing else to do."

"Ed!"

"What? It's scaring the crap outta us, calling it _helping _and its brother – sister – _whatever_ stole our limbs! For no reason." Ed paused. "Okay, that was for True Knowledge." Then he scowled. "Are they trying to get the rest of our bodies or something?"

Al paled, putting the same pieces together. "They – do you think so?" he stammered.

"Why else would it keep coming back and buggin' us?" Ed sighed and leaned his chin on the palm of his hand. "Just ignore it the next time – no-one else sees it anyway and maybe if we do, it'll go away, stay away and annoy someone else."

He shivered and looked around the room, just to make sure Shadow wasn't back. "Yeah, but what if he doesn't? What if he gets mad and tries to _eat_ us? Like the monsters in those stories..." He could hear their bones crunching in his head, along with all the other scenarios his imagination was wildly running with.

"Pfft." Ed waved a hand dismissively. "Those were _stories_, dummy. They weren't real stories about real monsters." Then he added, "And it doesn't have a mouth to eat us with anyway." That _was_ reassuring for him but didn't completely stop his mind from showing him '_What if..._'. "And if it _is_ one of those kinda monsters, we know their weaknesses, right?" Ed grinned at him and started to tick off his fingers. "Wood, silver, a bullet to the head, holy water..." His brother trailed off, a surprised look on his face, staring at his hand before he attempted to muffle a snicker. It didn't work that well. In between his laughter, he said, "Maybe that's why it ran – it thought I was throwing holy water at it!"

Al blinked, and turned it over in his mind. "But... it was in a drinking cup..." Surely he would have known. ...Right?

Ed nodded, still snickering. "Yup. It's not very smart, is it?" He was smirking vindictively.

There was a crash as the door suddenly slammed open. They whirled around to see what was attacking and saw Geki-Mayu's father already halfway across the room, a huge smile on his face. He was also saying something but by the time they'd heard it and were on the way to actually processing it, Ed had already been gathered up, put into a wheelchair and Al had been half-dragged alongside him.

Ed stared at him, wide-eyed. "Any idea where he's taking us?"

"No." They were halfway down the corridor.

"He'd be an amazing kidnapper."

Al agreed with him, but he couldn't say much else since his breath was being used just to keep up.

xXx

Iruka rapped on the door to Ed and Al's room and waited. When no answer came, he frowned and nudged the door open. Maybe they were sleeping...?

The room was empty with papers haphazardly lying on top of the bed.

He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Naruto..." Should he wait or come back later? Try and find them _now_, he decided. Who knew what trouble Naruto was getting them into or teaching them.

* * *

Yeeeeah, sorry for the massive lateness. I'd wanted to edit all the earlier chapters, answer reviews, PMs, and create a buffer before posting this chapter. And then fourth year at uni started.

I'm not sure when the next chapter will be posted because I'm pretty stuck on the next chapter, and I've moved in to another fandom which keeps lobbing plotbunnies at me at all hours.

**This fic is discontinued.**

Sorry. :/ I've moved fandoms, I'm not really into these fandoms anymore, and I kinda wrote into a brick wall here. However, have a brief summary of what I'd planned to happen:

The gate thing was just doing its job, though doing it _really_ slowly. It was meant to get back Ed and Al and bring them back to Amestris since they just weren't supposed to be on the Naruto world. The problem was, obviously, since Ed and Al would have to travel through the Gate again, they would also have to pay again.

So, yeah, Ed and Al have to pay the toll for crossing through the gate. Their payment? Their memories of the Naruto world.

Since Al jumped out before he payed his full toll, that means the gatebaby would be taking his memories _and_ his body so that he's paid for both his travelling to and from the Naruto world. So then, pretty much the backstory of Ed and Al picks back up in canon in their house when they get back, where Ed's lost his leg, and Al doesn't have his body, no recollection of the Naruto world, and they start their way down the path of the FMA plot.


End file.
